About
Serdar Akdeniz is a contemporary artist whose work focuses on surface, time, and material formation.
My work begins with an attention to surfaces. Some are encountered during walks through urban and natural environments, where traces of time are observed and collected before being reconstructed digitally. Others are generated through material processes that allow new surfaces to emerge. In both cases, these encounters are not sources of imagery but points of departure for a process of inquiry.
Weathered walls, mineral textures, aging materials, atmospheric layers — these are not simply visual motifs but traces of longer processes unfolding in the world. I am interested in the subtle transformations that occur when matter is exposed to time, environment and interaction.
Rather than pursuing a fixed medium or style, my practice begins with the search for conditions through which an image can emerge. I do not begin by deciding what to depict. Instead, I construct the conditions through which materials can act according to their own behavior. These processes are initiated, observed, allowed to unfold, and only gradually met through careful intervention. The image is not predetermined; it emerges through this dialogue rather than through illustration alone. Materials are not passive media but active participants whose own behavior contributes to the formation of each work. The image is not predetermined; it emerges through these interactions rather than through illustration alone. The materials are not passive media but active participants whose own behavior contributes to the formation of each work.
What appears as erosion, aging or decay often carries its own form of beauty. I am drawn to these moments where change leaves visible marks on the surface of the world — moments in which form becomes a record of time.
My work is therefore not an attempt to depict objects, but to construct conditions in which material processes can unfold. Some works develop across two material stages: physical processes first establish the work's formation, which is then reinterpreted through digital reconstruction and archival pigment printing. These are not separate practices but different material languages through which the same inquiry continues. Rather than reproducing an image, the second stage allows the work to unfold again under a different set of material conditions.
Across different materials, processes, and scales, the underlying question remains the same: under what conditions can time become visible through the behavior of surfaces and materials?
The title Minimal Poise does not refer to an aesthetic preference but to a way of working. Each work develops through continual adjustment between constructing conditions and allowing materials to follow their own behavior. It is neither complete control nor complete surrender, but a measured state of attention: knowing when to construct, when to observe, and when to participate.
Minimal Poise is the platform through which these investigations are shared.
Publications
·Publication - Arty Rat Magazine Issue #3
Four works from Surfaces of Becoming were selected for publication in Issue #3 of Arty Rat Magazine (May 2026). View the publication
Recognition
·BUAT Curatorial Award 2026 – Preselected Artist
Preselected for the international BUAT Curatorial Award 2026 (Barcelona, Spain).