Dagmar Gogdun. Turkey

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I was born in Zeitz, Germany. My childhood was rather difficult, because due to the profession of my father – an engineer - who worked in several countries like Mexico, Spain and Luxembourg, I had to change eight schools and was educated in three languages, German, Spanish and French. Nevertheless I succeeded to become a foreign correspondent and due to a job offer in Istanbul, I decided to work there. Here I got to know my husband and settled down in Istanbul.
When my husband got president of the Eminönü Rotary Club we choose as our project to show Turkey from her intellectual side and organized for this purpose a painting exhibition with works of the assistants belonging to the Mimar Sinan University, Academy of Fine Arts. This exhibition was shown in Frankfurt and Vienna. During this organization I was so much impressed by Fine Arts that I could never get rid of it. I attended the Mimar Sinan University as a guest student and later on took private lessons from the painters Tanju Demirci and Irfan Önürmen. I worked hard and opened my first solo exhibition in 1996. So far I had 12 solo exhibitions and many group exhibitions in Istanbul, Austria, Germany, Miami, New York and Las Vegas.
The subject of my paintings are flowers in general, because during our stay in Monclova-Mexico, situated in the middle of the dessert, my father took us to the nearby dessert to get some refreshment in the evening. The beautiful blossoms of the cactuses growing there and their beautiful scent impressed me probably so much that this adventure settled down in my brain and is hence the reason for my painting flowers.

Member of the International Plastic Arts Association.

www.dagmargogdun.com

REWARDS
2015 – Sandro Botticelli Prize,
2014 – Diploma of Excellence (Honorable Award) on behalf of Art Addiction Medial Museum, P.A.Russu
2012 – Dagmar Goegduen has been selected by the Florence Biennale's International Selection Committee for participation in the IX Edition of the International Biennale of Contemporary Art/Florence

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2017 Artifact Gallery, NYC
2017 Mine Art Gallery, Palmarina/Bodrum, Turkey
2016 Doku Art Galleries/Istanbul
2014 Doku Art Galleries/Istanbul
2013 Doku Art Galleries/Istanbul
2013 Doku Art Galleries/Ankara
2012 "Camellia Show", Doku Art Gallery, Istanbul
2010 "Starring Violet", Odakule Art Gallery, Istanbul (Exhibition Catalogue)
2008 ''Flower Mania'', Odakule Art Gallery, Istanbul (Exhibition Catalogue)
2005 "Nature's Children", Garanti Bank Inc. Head Office, Istanbul (Exhibition Catalogue)- (NTV Exhibition Interview)
2003 "Tulips and Orchids", The Marmara Hotel, Istanbul
2002 "Endangered Beauty-Turkey's Flora and Endemic Plants", Hamburg University - Botanic Garden, Hamburg
2001 "Endangered Beauty-Turkey's Flora and Endemic Plants", The Marmara Hotel, Istanbul (Exhibition Catalogue)
2000 "Cactuses, Orchids, etc", Bahariye Art Gallery, Istanbul
1998 "Memories of Mexico", Toprak Bank, Inc. Art Gallery, Istanbul
1996 " One and a Thousand Flowers ", T. Is Bank, Erenköy Art Gallery, Istanbul

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2017 Ortaköy Art Gallery, Istanbul
2016 Art Expo NY - April 2016
2014 Mine Art Gallery, Palmarina/Bodrum
2013 Doku Art Gallery, Istanbul
2013 Southern Nevada Museum of Fine Art, Las Vegas
2013 Marjinart/Istanbul
2013 Mine Art Gallery - Neolife Medical Center
2013 Doku Art Galleries/Istanbul
2012 Doku Art Gallery, Istanbul
2012 Ward Nasse Gallery, New York
2011 Doku Art Gallery, Istanbul
2010 Doku Art Gallery, Istanbul
2008 Mine Art Gallery, Istanbul
2008 Gallerie Karismus - Gloggnitz/Austria
2007 Pastoral Art House, Istanbul
2007 Aladogan Art Gallery, Istanbul
2007 Mine Art Gallery , Istanbul
2007 Art Fusion Gallery, Miami, USA
2007 Central Gallery-KASDAV Caddebostan
2006 Art Fusion Gallery, Miami, USA
2006 Mine Art Gallery , D-Marine Turgut Reis Bodrum
2005 Mine Art Gallery , D-Marine Turgut Reis Bodrum
2005 Akatlar Culture Center, Istanbul
2005 Aladogan Art Gallery , Istanbul
2003 Harbiye Military Museum Exhibition Hall, Istanbul
2001 Bahariye Art Gallery, Istanbul
2001 Europe College, Istanbul
2000 Umit Yasar Art Gallery, Istanbul
2000 Destek Reinsurance Art Gallery, Istanbul
1999 Mine Art Gallery, Istanbul
1997 Ariyel Art Gallery, Istanbul
1996 Sark Insurance Art Gallery, Istanbul

STATEMENT
The best way to describe me is that I am an "environmental fighter" and that I feel deeply sorry for each plant or animal disappearing from our planet. Turkey, where I am living for more than 40 years, possesses one of the richest flora in Europa; but unfortunately due to lack of interest, wrong building policy, etc, rare flowers are exterminated day by day. This fact has influence on my art; in each of my exhibitions I try to emphasize this problem. One of my exhibitions "Endangered Beauty" was on endemic flowers in Turkey. One on wild orchids, because Turkey possesses most of wild orchids in Europe; another exhibition was on tulips - the first tulip bulb was taken from Turkey to Europe; another exhibition was on cactuses which I saw during my stay in the deserts of Mexico. I try to paint these small creatures with all their details like filaments, wrinkles, color shades, etc in large dimensions in order to show their real beauty; for me each flower is an unique example of harmony in shape and color...

CRITIC ESSAY
The artist Dagmar Gögdün enforcing the limits of a visual realism, being defined as photo-realism creates a pure flower esthetic. At the same time she enters into an ecologic and personal esthetic adventure. Day by day, endemic flowers are disappearing from our earth surface; these beautiful creatures, representing an own characteristic nature fact for Turkey, and unfortunately standing on the threshold of extinction, are being taken with universal enthusiasm and by the magic dexterity of an artist's fingers into the dimensions of an ecologic continuance. The artist Dagmar Gögdün has brought together in her own esthetic and in a lively way her ecologic responsibility and her passion for flowers. By applying especially the method of photo-realism, she expresses concretely her responsibility and the deepness of her affection. All other things are left to people's point of view being sensitive towards nature and esthetic. Will we really close our eyes in front of the fact that we see these beauties less and less in our surroundings or will we finally do something in this field? This is, to a certain degree, the life-responsibility of people on our earth. Gradually, this becomes an obligation which must be perceived not only locally but everywhere on this world; a human and esthetic ideal.
"The artist looks at this subject - wherein Turkey possesses her own esthetic of nature beauty - within a double range of responsibility. And in one aspect, the responsibility and the clarity of The position which contemporary esthetic must take, are explained by themselves. The artist must not produce now an individual and closed art. Art is carrying here a responsibility which comprehends nature, the individium, society, and the whole world, which perceives love and life, which, however, must continue its way without making compromises towards esthetic and individuality. Perhaps here lies the special dimension which must be considered with contemporary art. If its possibilities can be used and creative results produced, then a fresh wind for new useful ways and models is blowing.
The artist Dagmar Göldün has dedicated herself to those flowers which spread on various places, especially, however, on steep mountain slopes and rocks difficult to be reached; they are of wild esthetic and untouchable beauty. Dagmar Göldün has placed these beauties into the focus of an imaginary magnifying glass, regarding them integratedly. In this way she let herself on one hand in for a surprising esthetic adventure and on the other hand she took the chance to take an ecologic standpoint, because these flowers are threatened by extinction, due to lack of care, disinterest and daily destruction of our surroundings.
How can these problems be solved now? The artist does not want to visualize pure beauty; if this where so, she would not carry ecologic responsibility. In turn, she shows a serious ecologic awareness and invites all responsible persons to be aware of this beauty. She tells us - and the flowers are only one example: Let us protect all beautiful and precious things being threatened by extinction! These flowers, which only grow with difficulties under hard nature conditions, mostly carry a wild beauty and a shudder-causing attractivity. The artist has been able to present with success the characteristics of these flowers and their wild charme by means of a realistic way of painting. With surprising success and empathy she has faced the problems of environment and created beauty and esthetic. She has placed the flowers in the esthetic of a close-up photo, which forces realism. In her paintings, she has maintained and further developed her special style, a minimal approach on black underground. The result is visual esthetic catching the charme of each flower in the tradition of minimalism. In this sense,
Dagmar Gögdün occupies a place in contemporary art due to her own esthetic definition which has been further developed and applied by her. She brings her individual and social responsibility together with her esthetic awareness and opens a new perspective of modern esthetic. The flowers the artist occupies herself with, carry interesting individual characteristics; however, all resemble surprisingly different objects and creatures: The Bug Orchid (Ophrys speculum) for example looks like a living creature; it produces a slightly fear-arising but fascinating colour and shape dialect. The Root's Cap (Digitalis lamarckii Ivan) with its unique and amazing shape, gives us a sense of respect due to its form and colour. The White Bell (campanula betulifolia) puts its very own sign. The Reversed Tulip (Fritillaria acmopetala) widens our imagination of a tulip and has a fixed place in the artist's photo realistic world.
Dagmar Göldün gives us the pleasure of an esthetic adventure filled with many messages. Each of these pictures, which in their heart pay respect to nature is an original esthetic work and takes its place within a double-layer esthetic concept. We have to congratulate the artist especially on taking this double meaning into consideration and presenting it in an original esthetic. (Ümit GEZGIN, Art Critic)
 

WRITINGS
I would like to emphasize that when studying your home page I found your individual and creative works very impressive. One has to look at them again and again and the eyes remain fixed on each square for a long time. (Faruk Bildirici, Editor of the Huerriyet Daily Newspaper)
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"Never wilt, however threatened by Dead" | The Botanic Garden in Hamburg Flottbeck shows photorealistic flower paintings of Dagmar Gögdün.
These flowers are beautiful like painted. No wonder, they are painted, although you can see them in the greenhouse. Overdimensional large and life like until to the last stamen. The painter Dagmar Gögdün born in Germany and living for many years in Turkey has put flowers into scene. Dagmar Gögdün has painted Turkey’s Flora and mostly flowers are concerned which only grow regionally in limited areas. Botanists call this endemic. You can meet in the show Reversed Tulips and Crocuses, the Wood Tulip and Root’s Cap, as well as the Iris and Meadow Saffran.
Basis of the photorealistic paintings are pictures of the Turkish Documentary film producer Fatih Orbay. Dagmar Gögdün is actually a foreign correspondent. In Istanbul she began an education as a guest student at the Academy of Fine Arts. Her paintings have so far be shown in several solo and group exhibitions in Turkey.
The painter works in the tradition of Dutch and Danish artists, who from the 17th to the 19th century painted nature with flower-still lives. However, contrary to the painting tradition, in Dagmar Gögdün’s paintings not the composition, but the plant academically exactly painted is the center of attention.
The presentation of these paintings in a greenhouse with living plants and their fragrances is of special charm. On a trip to Anatolia the artist was thrilled by the flower meadows. She started to collect photos of the rare plants and has in the meantime painted 30 pictures of flowers threatened to be extincted and says: I would be happy if with my paintings I could contribute to point to the threat of these beauties. (Article on my exhibition ‘Endangered Beauty, Turkey’s Flora and Endemic Plants’ which was published in the newspaper ‘Die Welt’ on June 11, 2002).
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Mrs. Dagmar’s ‘Flowers’ exhibition gives its visitors the happiness of a flower garden. Perhaps the main reason for this feeling is the freshness of the flowers you can perceive on the canvas, their harmony in colours and light up to their originality. This is due to the artist’s good knowledge and ability to express the flowers’ language and their biological structure. Hence, the persons visiting this exhibition will closely feel these multiple voices. (Prof. Dr. Ismail TUNALI)
=================Who does not like flowers. Contemplating their shapes and colours, perceiving their fragrance, just makes us happy. People close to nature establish a contact with flowers, they approach them with thirst of knowledge and full of feelings and enrichen hence their inner life. However, only rarely they are in the lucky position to share their affection, knowledge and love towards flowers with other persons. Dagmar Gögdün continues with much love to translate us through the possibilities of painting and her meticulous work what the flowers of Turkey's geography tell her. How happy can the persons be who can hear her voice, who can look at her works and acquire them. (Fatih ORBAY)

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The elegance of the flower, symbol of already renewed life, is the protagonist of the pictorial phrasing of Dagmar Gogdun. Shades of the color of the sun rising stand out on the support, making immediately obvious the life-giving power they have. Some flowers of this beautiful composition are plotted on a dark background, deliberately to emphasize the contrast between life and mystery of oblivion. Black, yellow, red, shades, are many small ingredients, many small 'pieces of cloth' that are 'sewn' with skill mastery vivifying of Our Artist. And this 'rhapsody of the passing time' includes life itself, which is short time, yellow flash, soft like a flower. A beautiful warp, caught in the moment of maximum splendor. The artist is a 'soul tailor'. (Prof. Dr. Dr. Salvatore Costantino)

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Poppy flowers of the elusive and delicate beauty as its petals, is the theme of visual storytelling made of extraordinary realistic effect by Dagmar Gogdun. In botany it is called 'Papaver rhoeas' and it has the colors of life: deep red and flamboyant green reinforce the sign delivered with skill by the artist. Intensive veins spread vitality and expressive force,the leaves dance to adapt to the natural standing of the plant. Green and red, therefore, calm and passion are synthesized into a single impulse that hides the black oblivion of the corolla from which it renewed life into an unfathomable mystery but well represented by Dagmar Gogdun. Mind flies to the artwork, made of musical notes and words by Jose Maria Lacalle Garcia in 1924, but 'Amapola' by Gogdun has nothing to regret in comparison with that.Very evocative. (Prof. Dr. Dr. Salvatore Costantino)
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After so many years that I deal with Art, perhaps with a deliberate naivete as a teenager who makes his first cultural discoveries, I still wonder if artists choose the subjects or subject chooses the artist. Dagmar Gögdün is an artist established, deep and with highly developed sensitivity. Then, I think, by force, that it was the artist to choose the subject in this case: the lotus flower, the water plant (native to Asia or Australia).
Against this background, it opens up very interesting consequences. Writers speak in words. Painters with colors and subjects. Nothing is fortuitous! Gögdün’s subject of art has a fascinating name: Nelumbo Nucifera (Gaertn, 1788), aquatic plant of the family Nelumbonaceae. It is a sacred flower in Hinduism and in Buddhism religion. For a long time it was also part of the symbols of flag of some of the ancient Indian states. It fascinates me to think that the artist Dagmar, who lives in the “East Gate”, Istanbul, has been so farsighted to choose a subject so rich in history and religious, and with so deep cultural symbolic implications. As if Dagmar, with a simple painting, screams to all of us her constant, intense, beautiful invitation to peace and to brotherhood among peoples, with no difference between the one and the other. If we reflect well, the Lotus in the Buddhist religion is unmistakably “symbol of the law of cause/effect”, which is one of the principles taught by Siddhartha. The brushwork of Dagmar is fluid, the colors perfect in their rhapsodic weaving. A play of lights and shadows enriches the painting, which looks just like the metaphor of the life of a man, who always lived between the light and dark of his aspirations and actions. (Prof. Dr. Dr. Salvatore Costantino)
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The subject, chosen by the artist Dagmar Gögdün this time, is very challenging. Artist’s brushwork and compositional scheme show how much precision and attention such an artwork must have cost its creator. The Rindera Lantana is one of 150 species of plants belonging to the family of the Verbenaceae (which are spread in America, Africa and also in the Eastern Region of Australia). In Old Latin was also called “viburnum lantana”.
The soft colors, which describe and fill the design of this painting, are lying with great skill and calm, as if a special effect – that goes beyond the simple painting – has been searched. From some points of view, you can say this artwork simulates an imagine taken in a scientific microscope in a botanical laboratory. So much precise details! The flower seems to be moving in the black vacuum. The description of the filaments so thin, so swaying, is really sought and it simulates movement in its entirety. Black, white, pink, green and their shades chase each other in spirals, drop shadows, and overlays, that make very complex the vision of such a pictorial subject. It is definitely a very evocative and interesting artwork, that shows a considerable pictorial talent. Overall, we are facing one of the best tests of Dagmar Gögdün painter, who has the special skill to describe the pictorial subject in all its details, not only the most significant and interesting. (Prof. Dr. Dr. Salvatore Costantino)
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Among the many examples of Nelumbonaceae, Lotus Cambodia has a very interesting cultural history. Even in mythology of Khmer’s times and in the Kingdom of Kambuja this flower had a special importance. Many works of art and monuments depict – for example –Apsara dancers over lotus plants or with lotuses in the hands. Lotus Cambodia has a very rapid growth, lives in ponds, but its leaves are repellent to water and dirt. For this reason, it is considered a symbol of purity, loyalty, creativity and intelligence. Buddhism consideres it as symbol of the essence of human life, which, while remaining clean, has its roots in the mud of reality. Lotus does not exist without the mud, as well as Buddha is manifested through the stresses of everyday life. In Cambodia, Lotus is eaten in almost all its parts. So that people – if we use a word of Greek origin – could be called “Lotofagoi” (lotus eaters), as we in the West, where we eat mostly wheat, could be detected well from the Greek word “Sitofagoi” (wheat eaters). Food becomes national identity, character and cultural haritage. But Dagmar Gögdün knows this very well. The colors, that she chooses in the color texture, are pure in their linearity, but highly expressive. Petals and interior details are depicted with great elegance and softness. Lines and curves of the design fit into one another, drawing spirals beautiful and evocative of largest and deepest spatial realities, that everybody can imagine. (Prof. Dr. Dr. Salvatore Costantino).