Art Antwerpen 2025 - Ayşen Kaptanoğlu
ART ANTWERPEN
Madé van Krimpen presents
Ayşen Kaptanoğlu
December 11–14
Booth A37
We are proud to present at this year’s Art Antwerp a selection of the fierceful paintings of Ayşen Kaptanoğlu, amplifying the importance and topicality of the issues Kaptanoglu raises, including the unequal gender power dynamics and the ways women’s lives and bodies are shaped by society. The winner of the Jeanne Oosting Prize 2025, Kaptanoğlu will have her solo-exhibition at our booth, bringing together personal, literary, and collective experiences.
Working across many media, such as ceramics, animation, and paper, Ayşen Kaptanoğlu has established an oeuvre that was described as “confrontational impressionism,” a punch in the face to break the peaceful flow of scamming artworks. The anger, pain and many other strong emotions that motivate her to create through those bright colors are informed by personal stories, characters she met in real life and through books, specifically when studying Italian and English language and literature. There, she encountered Sara Ahmed, Jean Rhys, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who taught her how to think critically, observe also the quiet forms of resistance, and to just stay angry. The poetry, for example, of William Blake has shaped her canvas to include animalistic characters too; the tigers, who appear as a trope, as a mythical companion of the women that take centre stage.
Every painting is a statement of power and beauty, yet also a warning that one should not mess with the characters, they can get angry and wild. Beyond the issues of gender, her works revolve around the often incapable feelings and utterances of loss, violence, migration, etc. all of which take a vivid shape on her canvas. Her figurative works often decenter the subjects’ faces; they remain obscure to allow room for projection. This way these unidentifiable characters become vessels for the stories, the emotions, shifting the focus from the person to the emotion they convey. Furthermore, her visual language becomes fierce and astounding through its aesthetic qualities like color, pattern, and scale. Form – similar to the characters and their feelings – comes across as limitless, not aiming specifically for harmony, without limit to colors or following a singular pattern. They are bewildered, and so are the emotions they stir up.
Ayşen Kaptanoğlu (b. Istanbul, Turkey, 1985) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Amsterdam. She studied Italian Language and Literature at Istanbul University before training at Wackers Academy (2016–2021) and attending the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (2022–2024). Kaptanoğlu has participated in prominent group exhibitions such as the Jeanne Oosting Prijzen Exhibition at Museum MORE and Missing Like a Round Shape at Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (2025). Her recent solo exhibitions include Battlegrounds at Villa De Bank, Enschede, and Cracks, Holes and Roses at Madé van Krimpen, Amsterdam (2025). Her work has been shown internationally at venues including Jean-Claude Maier Gallery, Frankfurt, and Versus Art Project, Copenhagen. She is the recipient of the Jeanne Oosting Prijs (2025) and grants from the Van Den Ende Foundation and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, and has completed public commissions such as the 2025 City Archives Drawing Assignment in Amsterdam.
Location
Antwerp Expo
Jan van Rijswijcklaan 191
2020 Antwerp, Belgium
art-antwerp.com
Opening Day - Thursday 11 December 2025
Preview: 11:00–16:00
Vernissage: 16:00–21:00
Public Days - 11:00–19:00
Friday 12 December 2025
Saturday 13 December 2025
Sunday 14 December 2025