Born in 1979 in Hanau, Germany, Serkan Sarier graduated from Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 2001. In 2018 he received his MA at Goldsmiths University of London.
With a portfolio expanding from painting to video, the artist explores the meaning of a series of questions; “What if we grow up or exist in a community that is so far removed from what we associate with our own identity? What if our self-being, our ethnicity, our sexuality or our gender is so far detached from our surroundings, that this identity we intimately carry concludes in a sense of loss.” Thus, he stipulates themes like belonging, identity, surroundings and human relationships. In his artworks, Sarier breaks the stigmas of social identity such as; sexuality, gender, ethnicity and other forms of social identity. The artist ponders on the idea of ‘not belonging’ by transforming objects from their distinctive form to a fluid appearance. For Sarier, this transformation is a symbol of detachment from unwelcoming environments that confines social identity; a tool that questions perspectives, fears and unwritten rules.
Serkan Sarier lives and works in New York.