Gülbin Ünlü

Gülbin Ünlü's artistic practice celebrates the principle of the mash-up. In her interdisciplinary approach, which includes collaborations with artists and the use of artificial intelligence (AI), she combines painting, photography, video, performance and music. Personal and collectively preserved memories play a central role in her work with underlying material drawn from private and public archives. Ünlü developed a hybrid technique between painting and printing. To create new pictorial structures and textures, the artist compounds different types of fabrics and interweaves motifs and image fragments from distinct sources and contexts. This specific artistic procedure allows her to work flexibly with contrasting materials and on various painting surfaces, thus opening her imagery for the use in spatial installations as well as for sculptural and performative possibilities. The artist transfers her method of layering and merging disparate elements into the three-dimensional space and the temporal dimension. Ünlü’s working process can be read considering the cultural practice of sampling. In a continuous reworking, she expands origins and overwrites them, connects different narrative lines and visualizes simultaneities, relationships, circumstances and causalities. Ünlü’s works defy conventional categorization and classification; they rather manifest the complex conditions of a present that is characterized by fragmentation and splintering on an individual, social, political and cultural level.

1/19
Arabeske, 2024, Oil and ink on canvas,  84 × 60 cm
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2/19
Anwendungen, 2024, Oil and ink on canvas, wooden strip,  211 × 500 cm
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3/19
Annäherung an die Experience, 2024, Oil and ink on canvas and velvet,  125 × 90 cm
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4/19
Monika, 2024, Ink and oil on canvas, ink on chiffon, photograph,  80 × 120 cm
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5/19
Dreamcore, 2024, Oil and ink on canvas,  84 × 60 cm
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6/19
Herstory [relict], 2022, Oil, ink on canvas,  200 × 120 cm
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7/19
Haltungsfehler, 2023, Oil, ink on fabrics,  60 × 41 cm
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8/19
Happy Hour, 2023, Oil, ink on canvas,  60 × 43 cm
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9/19
Pişmaniye (you), 2023, Oil, ink, reflective spray on canvas,  84 × 60 cm
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10/19
Pişmaniye (we), 2023, Oil, ink on canvas,  84 × 60 cm
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11/19
r.f. (i against i), 2023, Oil, ink on canvas,  42 × 30 cm
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12/19
r.f. (out of space), 2023, Oil, ink on canvas,  42 × 30 cm
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13/19
Pişmaniye (me), 2023, Oil, ink on canvas,  84 × 60 cm
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14/19
r.f. (jungle is massive), 2023, Oil, ink on canvas,  42 × 30 cm
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15/19
Blues Wurst, 2023, Oil, ink on canvas,  42 × 31 cm
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16/19
Untitled, 2023, Oil, ink on canvas,  42 × 31 cm
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17/19
guilty feet have got no rhythm, 2023, Oil, ink on canvas,  60 × 41 cm
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18/19
last words of a dying horse, 2023, Oil, ink on canvas,  60 × 41 cm
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19/19
Hundstage, 2023, Oil, ink on fabrics,  85 × 60 cm
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