İpek Duben, 1941

İpek Duben holds degrees from the University of Chicago (MA), the New York Studio School, and Mimar Sinan University (PhD), and she has also studied political science and sociology. Her educational background informs her research-based work, which focuses on issues of identity, especially gender, prejudice, migration, and memory. While her early work consisted mostly of paintings and drawings, since the 1990s the artist has diversified her output to include artists’ books, sound, installation, and video.

The point of departure for the series “Şerife” (1981) was the body as a figure. In the later works “Traces” (1991) and “Manuscript 1994” (1994), this transformed into a narrative in which the artist reconfigures the traditionally taboo female nude through her own body. By associating the body with the problem of identity, she gives it a more sociological basis. As an artist who has lived for many years in both Turkey and the United States, Duben also explores female identity through cultural differences and sexual and religious references. She emphasizes how the gaze toward the female body is different in Eastern and Western art. Thus, the issue of the place, perception, and identity of women as individuals and in society adds a feminist layer to the work.

“Şerife 6-7-8” examines three dresses, all different sizes but otherwise similar, which seem to belong to one person, as an allusion to female identity in constant struggle in society. One can sense female bodies through the details, but the women are not visible—their bodies are hidden, just as women in society hide their problems. Moreover, although the artist doesn’t depict the women’s faces, she provides hints about style, color, pattern, and bodies, encouraging us to imagine identities for them.