Articles From the Experts

“Sofia–Istanbul: bridge of art. Works with Stories”, an exhibition by Enakor Auction House

4 Dec 2025 – 3 Jan 2026 at the Union of Bulgarian Artists Gallery, 6 Shipka St., 2А

In Burçin Başar’s paintings, the inner world has no boundaries. It unfolds as a visual fantasy in which the organic and the abstract switch roles. The forms are both familiar and elusive, and the space is often weightless—like a dream in which logic is replaced by sensations and chaotic manifestations.

In her concept, Başar speaks of movement between internal states of contraction and expansion, of doubt and attempts at recovery. “As we try to escape the emotional violence we experience, we constantly strive to repair, cleanse, renew, and repair our brains again. In this movement, we expand, contract again, and in this back and forth, we question a world freed from what we call personal or individual control. We become smaller, then larger; we look through the eyes of a microscope, then from above… We live in a cell and then become the cosmos. And we spin in a loop.“

This cycle of “correcting” one’s understanding through imagery can be seen in her paintings, where the visual composition follows a concept that differs from narrative or realism. Where words describe emotional weightlessness, painting offers a place to pause—a loop in which the viewer can also expand or contract.

These paintings can be perceived as a sensory bridge to that which cannot be clearly named—the fragile states between memory and imagination, between growth and decay, between experiencing emotional violence and recovery. The subjects are born in a personal alchemy of places where the brain seeks a cure for its own wounds, and art perhaps offers consolation.

Rossitsa Gicheva-Meimari, PhD

Senior Assistant Professor in the Art History and Culture Studies Section and member of the Bulgarian-European Cultural Dialogues Centre at New Bulgarian University

Biography of the artist

Burçin Başar was born in Istanbul in 1984. In 2007–2008, she studied at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, and in 2010, she graduated with a degree in Painting from Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in Istanbul.

Her solo exhibitions include Retrace (2015), Ravenous (2017), Corpus (2019), CounterArgument (2021), and Big Words (2023), presented at the x-ist gallery, as well as Collective Dream (2021) at the Nuance gallery in Sofia.

Her works have been featured in numerous group exhibitions and fairs, including Milat (Istanbul, Turkey), Young Fresh Different (Istanbul, Turkey), Kesişme V (Istanbul, Turkey), x-tension (Bursa, Turkey), Variations on an Andalusian Dog (Istanbul, Turkey), Vector Quantity (Istanbul, Turkey), CO2 (Istanbul, Turkey), Site Studio CerModern (Ankara, Turkey), x-plore III and Untitled (Istanbul, Turkey), as well as Art14 (London, UK), Art International (Istanbul, Turkey) and Contemporary Istanbul. She has also participated in other art forums in Turkey and abroad.

Among Burçin Başar’s awards are the “Young, New, Different” award (2010, cda-Project, Zilberman Gallery), a scholarship for a summer residency at the School of Visual Arts, New York (2013), provided by the Moon and Stars Project, as well as the Creative Armenia Award for Painting in 2020.

Artist’s concept

I work mainly in the field of painting, but I incorporate various disciplines and materials into my practice, such as sculpture and video. I explore the ideological constructs and violence of human, identity, social and political events on human beings, human behaviours and psychological reflections, rings describing the representation of fear and mystery, chaos relations and changes. Thinking of art production as a material, a way of expression and understanding, reckoning, challenging, doubting, asking questions and looking for answers, I generally produce my works with mixed techniques, including oil, lithography pens, charcoal and pastel. Various varnishes and mediums in the production process, play an important role.

While trying to get out of the emotional violence we are experiencing, we are constantly trying to repair, clean, renew and repair our brains. In doing so, we go to the whole, we shrink again, and in this go-and-go, we question a world free of what can be considered our personal or singular control. We are getting smaller and bigger; We look through the eyes of a microscope, and from the top … We live in a cell and then become cosmos. And we’re going inside a loop.

While doing research on the pollution of visual memory in her recent works, I create new spaces for myself with manual manipulations of masking on the virtual photograph printouts made up of my personal archives. These masks-sketches transform the connections between the virtual and the real into a symbolic game.

Burçin Başar