About
Şeref Doğan is a ceramic artist who approaches ceramics through the relationship between form, surface and space, and whose work explores the concepts of simplicity, purity and dynamism. At the root of his artistic practice lies the individual’s search to give new meaning to his own existence and inner world within the dense structure of a contemporary world shaped by technology and industry. In Doğan’s understanding of art, ceramics is not merely a material to be shaped but a plastic field of communication established between the inner world and the outer world.
The organic and abstract forms he creates by drawing on the possibilities of volume, texture and colour in ceramics emerge as a simple and minimalist expression of the artist’s inner world. Stripping form of unnecessary detail, the balance between surface and volume, and the movement within the form itself are among the defining features of his work.
The cultural traces and images left by past civilisations also hold an important place in the artist’s work. Rather than repeating these images directly, he turns towards their essence, the traces they leave in memory and the universal meanings they carry. The relationship he builds between past and present is reinterpreted through contemporary and original ceramic forms.
The concept of “Nüve / Nucleus” is one of the key starting points of Doğan’s artistic approach. Drawing on the images that make up the cultural memory of different civilisations, the artist aims to reach the essence of form and to create a strong, simple plastic language stripped of excess. For him, purity, simplicity and dynamism are not only formal choices but also ways for modern man to turn towards his own existence.
Alongside his ceramic sculptures, Doğan also creates large-scale ceramic wall panels for public and architectural spaces; in these works he treats ceramics as a monumental surface that enters into a relationship with the space it occupies. History, cultural memory, nature and the relationship with the human are reinterpreted in these works, created over different periods.
Since 2008, Doğan’s works have met audiences in solo exhibitions held in Istanbul, Ankara, Bursa, Bozcaada and Çanakkale, and his work has received awards in various ceramics, sculpture and art competitions.
