Barış Can Solak, b. 1992, based in Istanbul.

Barış Can Solak is a visual artist whose practice revolves around expressive figuration, psychological tension, and material experimentation. His compositions are marked by layered surfaces, exaggerated gestures, and distorted mimics that reflect states of emotional overflow and social complexity. He often incorporates unconventional materials—at times including found or disposable items—as a way to bridge industrial consumption with personal rhythms of production, shaped by his engagement with farming and hands-on material processes.

With a background in political science and organizational psychology, Solak approaches image-making as a critical terrain for exploring power structures, psychosocial dynamics, and relational tensions that surface through mirrored emotional reactions. His recurring use of grotesque faces and biomorphic forms points to a sustained interest in visualizing emotional contagion, unstable identities, and interpersonal strain.

Influenced by movements such as CoBrA, Neo-Expressionism, and Die Brücke, Solak constructs charged visual environments that resist compositional order. His works do not offer resolution but generate fields of psychological friction—where meaning flickers between humor and unease, familiarity and estrangement, and viewers are drawn into a web of tension rather than guided through a fixed narrative or linear experience.