Celebrating it´s 20th anniversary in 2024, Zonamaco Mexico Arte Contemporaneo brings together leading and emerging galleries as the largest fair in Latin America in the vibrant city of Mexico City. Anna Laudel will return for this special edition with three distinct artists: Tugce Diri, Ekin Su Koc and Ramazan Can.
Anna Laudel is proud to present a collection of artworks at the gallery´s booth as part of the esteemed SUR section, curated by Luiza Teixeira de Freitas. This selection mirrors the curator’s keen emphasis on pressing contemporary issues, including the significance of sustainability and the preservation of nature and its resources. The curatorial statement also references the importance of embracing humanity’s diverse identities and the vital themes of self-care and self-love, which influenced the selection of artists proposed by Anna Laudel.
From Anna Laudel’s Zonamaco Collection, Ramazan Can´s work takes inspiration from Shamanism and modern mysticism. Inspired by Anatolian motifs, the artist maintains a subtle detachment from their historical context, skillfully blending them with neo-expressionist elements. His artistic repertoire spans painting, collage, neon light works, and sculpture. While not explicitly political, his creations offer a nuanced narrative and commentary on the intersection of history and contemporary society.
Tuğçe Diri predominantly engages in the realms of artisanal practices and ancient craftsmanship, which she traces in modern day Turkey. The Artisanal Tile series specifically reiterates the colors of traditional tiles mapping them on to abstract landscapes of the metropol Istanbul. Deeply concerned with the impact modern day lifestyles have on the city’s ecosystem and the life of its inhabitants, Tugce Diri traces what remains of the past and what needs to be preserved to maintain a sustainable present.
Tuğçe Diri was born in Eskişehir in 1984. She graduated from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in 2010 and holds a degree in Applied Lithography and Painting. She opened her own studio sequentially in 2010 and continued working independently. In 2019, she completed her Master’s degree at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University with the thesis “Reflections of Traditional Arts in Contemporary Turkish Painting”.
Working in series and using materials such as acrylic/oil paint, charcoal/ink pencil, collage, fabric, and yarn, she has maintained drawing and painting to this day at the heart of her production process. Diri is influenced by a wide range of art movements and techniques, from the Arte Povera to Surrealism, from the dynamism of Abstract Expressionism to the design and text-painting traditions of Islamic Arts. Re-synthesizing material, blending different societies’ and cultures’ concepts of history, memory, and the role nature plays within different cultures visual cultures and tradition, is what drives the artist´s artistic process and gives her work a sense of collision, yet also rebirth within and between different worlds the viewer can only slowly comprehend when being confronted with her work.
Ekin Su Koç‘s artistic practice is informed by consistently evolving dialogues about migration, displacement, gender dynamics, nature, and body perception. Ekin Su Koç reimagines and emancipates the female figures from well-known works of the baroque and renaissance era with her modern and provocative style. Ekin Su Koç’ contemporary approach reinterprets time honored works to protest against and alter the subvert the objectification of the body.
Ekin Su Koç was born in Istanbul in1986, gained her undergraduate degree from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and holds a Master’s degree in Painting from Işık University. Her artistic style is characterized by elements of collage on paper, painting on canvas and mixed media sculptures. In her work Ekin Su Koc explores what defines our sense of belonging and our sense of dislocation or bewilderment. She juxtaposes the native with the foreign, the local with the distant and the familiar with the alienated. She references her own past and present reality, yet in relation to a broader social context. Exploring the themes of migration, gender, feminism, territoriality, alienation and familiarity, Ekin Su Koc presents the viewer with her own narrative of migration, all the while playing with these notions skillfully and with a hint of humour. The artist lives and works in Berlin, where her work is part of the collection of the Zitadelle Spandau, Centre of Contemporary Art Museum.
Bringing together three different perspectives on modernity in relationship to their own personal narratives and experiences, the thoughtfully curated selection of artworks by the three young artists can be visited at Anna Laudel, Booth Number SUR1, in the Section SUR from February 7th to 11th, 2024 at Centro Citibanamex, Mexico City.