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NEDİM ÇELKAN
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The Process

From the depths to the work.

  1. 01

    Gathered by hand

    Over nearly sixty years of active diving, he personally collected fish, octopus, sea urchins, crabs, starfish, seaweed, and shells from the depths.

  2. 02

    Treated and tanned

    Each material underwent special chemical treatment, tanning and controlled preservation. No fabric, silicone, resin or artificial pigment.

  3. 03

    Years of waiting

    “Some materials required ten years of waiting; others twenty.”

  4. 04

    Transformed

    “The sky may be the underside of a sole fish, armor becomes moray skin, and the arm of a warrior may well come from a crab.”

“A single work may take months, or it may demand a lifetime.”

Nedim Çelkan

An art of patience. An art of devotion.

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.