The Artist
Nedim Çelkan
April 1, 1945, Istanbul – January 8, 2025, Datça
Biography
Nedim Çelkan (April 1, 1945, Istanbul – January 8, 2025, Muğla) was a Turkish artist and diver known for works made from marine life.
Born in Istanbul, Çelkan began his career painting cinema posters and working in print-house illustration and comic books before turning his attention entirely to the sea and its creatures. Over the course of nearly sixty years of active diving, he personally collected fish, octopus, sea urchins, crabs, starfish, seaweed, and shells from the depths. These organic materials underwent chemical treatment, tanning, and years of drying and preservation before he transformed them into relief panels and three-dimensional sculpture.
Mythology and marine culture occupy a central place in Çelkan's practice. His compositions frequently feature mermaids, mythological heroes, references to Neptune and Poseidon, Native American warriors, Egyptian figures, fish-human hybrids, and underwater scenes. Fish skins, crab legs, sea urchins, flying gurnard wings, and moray and scorpionfish skins become armor, garments, or the bodies of fantastical beings.
Çelkan did not measure his work against that of others. He developed a singular visual language, shaped by the sea, by imagination, and by decades of hands-on craft. He held nearly ninety-five exhibitions in cities including Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana, and Antalya, bringing his work to audiences across Turkey.
In the final period of his life, Çelkan lived in Datça, a coastal town in the province of Muğla. By his own account, he never sold any of his works, choosing instead to preserve his oeuvre with great care. His greatest wish was for the work to be seen and recognized around the world, and to inspire new artistic explorations rooted in the life of the sea.
Nedim Çelkan died on January 8, 2025, in Datça, Muğla, at the age of 79.
By Nedim Çelkan
Artist Statement
My name is Nedim Çelkan.
My life belongs to the sea. I am not only someone who eats fish, but someone who knows them, respects them, and listens to them. I wanted fish to have an art of their own. I have been diving for sixty years; I know the darkness, the light, the scent and the silence of the deep. Every creature that rises from the water speaks first to my curiosity, then to my imagination. Each fish carries a story, and through my art, I let those stories speak.
My early years were spent painting cinema posters, working as a print-house illustrator, and drawing comic books. Those years taught me discipline, composition, and the art of creating character. Yet eventually, painting became insufficient. I felt a wall, a limit. The worlds drawn by my hand began to feel too narrow.
And at that very moment, the sea called me.
Whatever emerged from the water, I treated it as part of life itself.
Fish skins, wings, scales; crab arms; sea urchin shells; the texture of the octopus... I preserved each of them with special treatments, dried them for years, sometimes decades. Some materials required ten years of waiting; others twenty.
This is an art of patience. An art of devotion.
A single work may take months — or it may demand a lifetime.
Nothing you see in my works is accidental.
The sky may be the underside of a sole fish,
armor becomes moray skin,
a garment becomes the wing of a flying gurnard,
and the arm of a warrior may well come from a crab.
Mythology has always been close to me.
The daughters of Poseidon, Roman soldiers, Sioux warriors, Egyptian figures, fish-human hybrids...
They are the children of my imagination.
Beneath the waves, the silence always opened a doorway to another time.
I was the first to create this artistic language.
This is not a boast, but an observation. I know of no other artist who has worked with marine life on such a scale, with such discipline, and through purely organic materials. I wish there had been others — so that I might have learned from them as well. But this path opened itself only to me.
I never sold any of my works.
This is not an art made for money.
I kept every piece, protected them for years, because each of them was entrusted to me by the sea.
Toward the end of my life, I had only one wish:
That these works be seen around the world, recognized for what they are, and inspire others to dive into the sea and create new artistic languages of their own.
I can no longer dive, but my works still do.
They will continue to tell the stories that rise from the water.
Nedim Çelkan
Curatorial Statement
A Visual Language Born from the Sea
Nedim Çelkan's work occupies a singular place within contemporary material-based practice. Distinguished by the exclusive use of organic marine matter, his works are constructed from elements directly sourced through decades of diving: fish skins, moray and scorpionfish textures, flying gurnard wings, sea urchin shells, crab appendages, seaweed structures, and other biological remnants. The absence of synthetic interventions — no fabric, silicone, resin or artificial pigment — gives his work a rare material authenticity, in which the medium functions not as a support but as an active narrative agent.
Çelkan's methodology is rooted in a long-term engagement with the ecological and morphological dynamics of the sea. Nearly sixty years of observation provided him with an empirical understanding of species behavior, decomposition processes, and the temporal transformation of organic surfaces. Each material underwent rigorous chemical treatment, extended drying, and controlled preservation, resulting in hybrid structures that intersect natural history and artistic invention.
Mythology operates as an interpretive layer across these compositions. Figures referencing Poseidon, warrior archetypes, mermaid forms, and fish-human hybrids emerge not as fantastical constructs but as embodiments of marine materiality. Their authority derives from the material itself: every scale, shell, and fragment once belonged to a living organism. This convergence of biology and myth produces a visual language that challenges conventional distinctions among sculpture, assemblage, and taxonomic display.
Çelkan's practice ultimately proposes a model of art-making grounded in ecological intimacy and material truth. His works constitute not only a body of artistic production but a unique archive of life, time, and transformation within the marine environment.
Timeline
1945
Born in Istanbul, Turkey (April 1).
1960s
Begins diving as a young man; develops a lifelong fascination with marine life.
1960s – 1970s
Works as a cinema poster painter, print-house illustrator, and comic-book artist.
Early 1980s
Turns entirely toward the sea as his primary artistic source; begins collecting marine materials during dives.
Mid 1980s
Creates his first reliefs using real fish skins, shells, seaweed, and marine fragments.
1990s – 2000s
Establishes his signature visual language combining mythology and marine biology. Exhibits widely across Turkey, including in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana, and Antalya (approximately 95 exhibitions).
2010s
Continues producing large-scale reliefs and sculptural hybrid figures; refines long-term preservation techniques for organic materials.
Late 2010s – 2020s
Lives and works in Datça, Muğla, preserving his oeuvre.
2025
Dies in Datça, Muğla, on January 8, at the age of 79.
A Note from CDW
Carrying the Work Forward
When we first encountered the works of Nedim Çelkan, we felt something rare: an untouched artistic universe waiting to be revealed to the world. His creations, built entirely from materials drawn from the depths of the sea, carried a sincerity and originality that immediately spoke to us. Every scale, every shell, every form preserved by his hands reflected decades of devotion, patience, and an imagination that refused to follow any known path.
As CDW, guided by Irmak Çağlar's vision for cultural preservation and global artistic outreach, we felt a responsibility to ensure that Çelkan's life's work would not remain hidden. He created with purpose. His wish was simple yet profound: that one day people across the world would see, understand, and be inspired by what he brought from the sea to life.
This archive continues that work. Nedim Çelkan's marine works have been gathered and documented, and are presented here for an international audience. It is our honor to carry his legacy forward, with respect for his craft, admiration for his vision, and gratitude for the world he left behind.
CDW / Irmak Çağlar