Tayfun Erdoğmuş creates compositions by organising organic still life materials, such as dried leaves and flowers, in an organised manner contrary to their natural state. The basic structure of his work is the time and memory layers of the human-nature relationship, plant world, cosmology, biology, and the complex character of the new imaging systems, the artist’s techne is an attempt to become a passageway which makes the formation of the works possible, and reveals the transformational power of alchemy. In this context, plants collected from nature are dried and classified among the pages of large notebooks according to their shapes and types, become the words that form the basis of the artist’s vocabulary. These materials are the beginning of a long and laborious painting process that takes place in the artist’s workshop which resembles a natural sciences laboratory. As a result of the chemical interaction which Erdoğmuş creates with the help of layers developed on top of each other with a unique technique, the surface of the work becomes a kind of image. The artist’s production process, which brings coincidence and mind, art and craft into a relationship which patiently mediates the formation of alchemy, is also a process of repair and healing for himself, and regains its presence in the memory embedded in the surface of the history that constitutes it.
Tayfun Erdoğmuş (1958, Isparta) graduated from the State School of Applied Fine Arts, Department of Painting in 1979, completed his doctorate in 1986 at Marmara University and received the title of Professor in 1997. Solo exhibitions include Berlin Studio Peter Anders, Gallery Nev İstanbul, Berlin Galerie Seits & Partner, Essen Kultur Centrum Schloss Borbeck, Gent Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Ankara Black and White Art Gallery and Berlin Schering Kunstverein. His group exhibitions are Istanbul Pilevneli Project, Berlin Galerie Seitz & Partner, Berlin Meinblau Projektraum, Tokyo Art Museum, Seoul Total Contemporary Art Museum, Istanbul Borusan Art Gallery. Erdoğmuş, whose works are in many collections including Eczacıbaşı Holding (Istanbul), Hacı Ömer Sabancı Foundation (Istanbul), TC Central Bank (Istanbul), OMM (Eskişehir), Republic of Turkey Presidential Tarabya Mansion (Istanbul), Royal Palace of Jordan and Jordan Art Museum. Tayfun Erdoğmuş lives and works in Istanbul.