DEFNE CAMCIOĞLU

Defne Camcıoğlu was born in 1989 in Şişli, Istanbul. She completed her undergraduate studies in Visual
Communication Design at Sabancı University in 2013. During her program, she interned for three months at BNDG, a company based in London. In 2016, she participated in the Mas El Igolos artist residency in Torelles de Foix, Barcelona. The following year, she took part in the Vernice Art Fair painting exhibition in Italy. Since 2019, she has incorporated frames as an integral part of her paintings. In 2020, she started working on patterns and she founded her own fashion brand, Le Monade Dreams. In 2022, she began psychoanalytic therapy, and she decided to conduct research on Jung and Freud. Her studies have since expanded to explore themes of art, birth, death, psychoanalysis, archetypes, and duality. In the summer of 2023, she participated in a group exhibition at Titanic Hotel in collaboration with Maji Gallery in Bodrum. Later that summer, she held her first solo exhibition at Pecos Rock Bar in Çeşme, featuring 50 paintings. In December 2023, she took part in a group exhibition at Holy Art Gallery in London. Since 2024, she has started incorporating the patterns she designed for her own brand into her artistic work. Through this process, she has built a bridge between commercial design and personal expression, expanding her visual language into new mediums.

Defne Camcıoğlu, who has undergone a psychoanalytic process, initially focused in her paintings on themes such as Freud, Jung, the self, and separation from the mother. After exploring these topics for a long time, she decided to delve into the themes of siblinghood, duality, and singularity. During this research, she first designed a “sibling shirt,” then began working with tailor’s mannequins, emphasizing artificial beauty. She later created twin mannequins and dual panels, once again addressing themes of duality, siblinghood, and oneness. Having spent many years working primarily with painting—especially abstract painting in her later years—Defne Camcıoğlu eventually shifted her artistic practice towards installations, using fabric and panels as her main materials.