Bio
İlke Şahin (b. 1992, Istanbul) is a London-based artist working with sculpture, installation, and film. Using materials that behave like unreliable archives, she constructs fragile skin-surfaces that record scratching, oxidation, and erosion over time. Her background in architecture informs a spatial and process-based approach in which materials are treated as co-authors rather than tools. She completed her MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2024, following a BA in Interior Architecture at Istanbul Technical University in 2016.
Artist Statement
Working across sculpture, installation, film, and material performance, I construct conditions in which materials behave as unstable, self-organising bodies. They leak, crystallise, corrode, collapse, and transform as a condition of their existence. This inquiry takes shape through material research, chemistry, and lyricism, and is closely connected to my own psychological and dermatological experiences.
I use materials that behave like unreliable archives, constructing fragile, skin-like surfaces that register scratching, oxidation, erosion, and decay over time. Rather than imposing a fixed form, I set up conditions for self-organising material processes to unfold. Each work develops through a shared authorship between my body, the material, and the environment.
My sculptures often begin with somatic memory: the pressure of a fingernail on skin, the compulsion to scratch, the itch of a wound, the lifting of a scab, the sudden appearance of fresh blood. I approach these gestures not simply as metaphor, but as bodily knowledge. I am interested in the unstable dynamic in which I am both the one who acts and the one subjected to the action. As in urticaria, the psychology that produces the itch positions my skin as an object, while also activating the hand that scratches it. In that movement, the body becomes both the source of the gesture and the site that receives it.
I am particularly drawn to skin conditions and itching as points where psychology, wounding, and the unstable boundaries between health and disease become entangled. I am also interested in the connection between wounded skin, oxidising blood, and materials such as metal that likewise change through oxidation.
Theory enters my practice through embodied, multi-sensory attention. Phenomenology, object-oriented ontology, and ecocritical writing shape how I think, but decisions are made in the studio through bodily movements: scratching, lifting, waiting, and watching. Each work becomes a small system in which control and surrender coexist, leaving the image open, contingent, and shared between myself, the material, and the viewer.
Education
2022-2024 Goldsmiths University, London Masters in Fine Art, Pass with Distinction
2018-2020 Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir Masters in Art and Design, GPA: 4/4
2010-2016 Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul BSc in Interior Architecture, GPA: 3.08/4
Exhibitions and Events
March 2026 POND • duo show with Daisy Dickens at Greatorex Street, London
Feb 2026 VG Rites #0: HEDIK • Various Grounds Collective at FILET, London
Oct 2024 In Days of Heatwave II: Among the Hydrocommons at Safehouse, London • Curators: Emre Ataman and Oli Mardon
July 2024 Goldsmiths MFA Degree Show, London
May 2023 Entwined Intimacies at Hartslane, London • co-curated with Jiwon Yoo, Nathaniel Trost, and Shira Bar
Feb 2023 Taste the Difference II of Loess Collective at Hypa Studios, London • Curators: Evie Banks, Margherita Ghella, and Susana Lopez
Jan 2023 Taste the Difference I of Loess Collective at Hypa Studios, London • Curators: Evie Banks, Margherita Ghella, and Susana Lopez
Nov 2020 BASE New Artist Platform, Istanbul • Curator: Derya Yücel
April 2018 Mamut Art Project, Istanbul • Jury: Ayşe Erkmen, Ayşe Umur, Evrim Altuğ, Haldun Dostoğlu, Selen Ansen
Awards
2025 Aesthetica Art Prize 2025 - longlisted and featured
2024 The Warden's Prize - winner
ACME Early Career Award - shortlisted
Almacantar Studio Award - shortlisted
2016 MEKAN National Interior Architecture Students Graduation Project Competition - first prize
2015 Bornova Town Hall Architectural Design Competition - second prize
2014 Amsterdam Light Festival Competition - finalist
Art Programmes and Residencies
2019 Daire Artist Residency, Çanakkale • Selected participant artist at K2 Contemporary Art Association, Tutor: Nezaket Ekici
2018 - 2019 Istanbul Biennial Production and Research Programme, Istanbul • Researcher artist at Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) Coordinator: Zeyno Pekünlü, Mentor: Deniz Gül
Publications
2020 Article: The Re-definition of Haptic Concept with the Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty • Phainomena Journal of Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind, Issue 3, September-December
2020 MA Thesis: Haptic Art Object in the Context of Phenomenology of Perception • Advisor: Prof. Simber Rana Atay, Dokuz Eylul University, Art and Design
Press
Curatory Magazine Vol. 12 https://www.curatorymagazine.com/post/i%CC%87lke-%C5%9Fahin
Aesthetica Magazine 2025 https://artprize.aestheticamagazine.com/projects/ilke-sahin/