Irmak Dönmez
About
Interdisciplinary artist (b. 1987 , Istanbul, Turkey)
Irmak Dönmez lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey. She graduated with a BA in Visual Arts and an MFA in Painting from Işık University. She also pursued a Ph.D. in Art Theory at Işık University. She had her first solo show at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, during which she held her first solo exhibition, "My Thoughts are Breaking My Hair”, in Copenhagen. Her work was featured in "Mother" exhibition at Kunsthalle Mannheim in 2021, and her sculpture was added to the museum's permanent collection. She is represented by Martch Art Project based in Istanbul.
Irmak's Work
Irmak Dönmez’s artistic research explores the phenomenological body, examining how societal and cultural expectations impose meanings upon it. Drawing on Lacan and Heidegger, she investigates the body through bio-politics, gender dynamics, feminist and queer theories. A central motif in her work is the breast, which she explores as both a source of nourishment and an object of desire, embodying the tension between sustenance and commodification. Dönmez deconstructs the body into fragmented, symbolic forms, evoking hybridity and metamorphosis. She visualizes it as a landscape of organic elements in a self-contained ecosystem, reflecting themes of desire, power, and identity. She mostly focuses on bio-politics, oedip/anti-oedip, the body as a phenomenon, gender politics, and feminist & queer theory.