Meltem Sarıkaya

Meltem Sarıkaya was born in Mersin in 1991. She completed her education at Dokuz Eylül University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Painting.

Sarıkaya states that her inquiries within her own life dynamics, from the early days of her artistic production until today, predominantly revolve around the heterosexism, homophobia, and the hypocritical gender bullying of the patriarchal society she was born into, which she observes in daily life. She indicates and references these issues in her artworks. The artist also emphasizes the dominant and active aspects through the masculine/feminine dichotomy instead of the traditional male/female binary. She visualizes concepts of power, sexuality, authority, violence, and femininity.

She portrays strength, sexuality, freedom, and violence through femme fatale characters. The deliberate inclusion of these figures in her paintings stems from her process of defining her own sexual identity, confronting the hypocritical gender politics of the patriarchal society she lives in, and her personal observations. As an artist whose production process develops instinctively, she creates a space for struggle as she continues to produce with these concerns in mind. While fighting becomes her driving force, she strives to depict and point out sexuality, which is traditionally encoded within standards, without confining it to predetermined molds, and she aims to distance herself from imposed passive female profiles. She intends to expose and highlight the walls constructed by the neighborhood, authority, and the system through taboos without conforming to new molds.

Meltem Sarıkaya continues her life and works in Istanbul.