Oylum Öktem

Oylum Öktem

Born in 1976 in Istanbul, Öktem completed her BA in Fashion and Textile Design at MÜGSF and her MA in the same field at Mimar Sinan University GSF.
Öktem completed her Proficiency in Art with her thesis on the Evolution of Value Tendencies from the Republic to the Present from a Fashion Perspective.
She worked in the Costume Design department at Istanbul State Theater. She worked as the design authority of valuable brands of the Turkish textile and fashion industry. She became Art Director and Head of Fashion Design department in the establishment of İMA with University of Arts London, LCF, which is an EU Project (ITKİB).
During this period, she was the art director of many exhibitions on the culture and history of clothing. As a curator, she designed exhibitions on national and international platforms. Öktem opened an exhibition on the History of Turkish Women's Clothes in Tokyo, courtesy of the Empire. She lectured on 'Cultural Intersections between Multidisciplines' at Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture. As an academician, Oylum Öktem gives lectures in Turkey and abroad and her works have been accepted to many competitive exhibitions abroad.
Working as a multidisciplinary artist, Oylum Öktem continues with her sculpture exhibitions and sculptures the genetic trace of the storehouse of observations she developed on sculpture in the workshop of her father Prof. Dr. Tankut Öktem, the esteemed sculptor of the Republic.
She has realized many urban sculptures such as Raffles Hotel -Istanbul sculpture, Dream Project Sculpture, Maçka Park Fasl-ı Özgürlük sculpture, Sadrazam Sait Pasha Mansion sculptures. She opened her first solo exhibition at Drimart gallery in 2006, her second exhibition Fasl-ı Özgürlük -Çingeneler at Teşvikiye Işık Gallery, and her third solo exhibition Derin Deliler; Bir Kent Meselesi at Istanbul Chamber of Architects in 2016.
She is the co-founder of D-Köy Culture and Art Project and Tankut Öktem Museum House and Association.
She has books and articles on the history of clothing. Her books My Sculptor Father, An Extraordinary Master, Diary of a Republican Mother, which he opened at AASSM in 2017, were published simultaneously with the exhibition of the same name she curated at the Gates of the Crystal Age in 2021; and her books.
Following the exhibition Threshold and Rank in May 2023 on the 100th anniversary of the Republic, she is opening the exhibitions An Artist Family of the Republic at the Dawn of the Second Century; Symphony of Light and The Closing of an Era; Rebirth simultaneously at Bomontiada GALLERY and 4th floor in 2024.