Selected works
Error Report, 2022 Error Report, 2022, Mixed media on paper, 70 x 100 cm
Forgotten, 2021 Forgotten, 2021, Oil on canvas, 100 x 140 cm
Cengizland, 2021 Cengizland, 2021, Oil on canvas, 114 x 142 cm
Deserter, 2022 Deserter, 2022, Mixed media on paper, 70 x 100 cm
Deportation, 2021 Deportation, 2021, Ink on paper, 70 x 100 cm
Untitled, 2010 Untitled, 2010, Ink on paper, 70 x 100 cm
Colossus, 2021 Colossus, 2021, Oil on canvas, 97 x 130 cm
Limits of Control, 2014 Limits of Control, 2014, Ink on paper, 92 x 142 cm
Is There Anybody Out There?, 2023 Is There Anybody Out There?, 2023, Ink on paper, 150x370cm
Sumerki, 2021 Sumerki, 2021, Oil on canvas, 85 x 140 cm

Djochkoun Sami is a contemporary painter currently living and working in the Istanbul, Turkey. Graduate of Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Faculty of Painting, Istanbul (BFA, MFA), he is regularly exhibiting at various group shows, illustrated magazines, poetry books, theatre posters. His recent 2022 solo exhibitions were held at Istanbul Concept Gallery, Turkey and Silistra Art Gallery, Bulgaria.

Sami's paintings often incorporate architectural and historical references, while maintaining an affinity for the templates of formalist painting. His limited color palette supports his drawing-based process, making visible an effort towards achieving pictorial and formal values. His work exists in a space floating between the stylistic borders of expression and figuration. Sami frequently borrows forgotten, abandoned architectural spaces from the recent past, exposing the possibilities for the existence of anonymous, depoliticized homogeneous spaces. In some of his recent works, he strips away historicism and allusions, instead incorporating objects, rocks, organic matter, and voids that accompany a horizontally-based perception of time.

Sami's paintings reveal a cynicism towards politics, a characteristic developed from his upbringing. He employs references and motifs of modernity, progress, regress, and the grand narratives of the past. In some of his paintings, he illustrates how the political is reduced to its grotesque dimension, with power struggles, flag-waving, and the reselling of imaginary dreams. His work engages in a hauntology research of its own, exploring how the agendas of contemporary societies are shaped by ghosts of the past.


   Paintings
   Drawings
   CV & Exhibitions