Kadir Karababa (born 1985) is a British-Turkish artist, born, living and working in London.
Working across painting, print, sculpture and installation, he has developed an ever evolving practice. He is self taught, not having received a fine art education.
Kadir describes himself as a ‘re-emerging’ artist, having taken an extensive forced break from creative practice (a stark reality for many artists who face socio-economic and cultural barriers) and his pursuits as ‘making work with my heart on my sleeve, that is honest, emotional and personal’. He quarries the intersections of his multiple selves, drawing on autobiography and often using family photographs as source material.
His process consists of recycling, regeneration and repetition—returning to material again and again, sometimes over weeks, months or years to rediscover and re-imagine what it might mean in new orientations of time and space.
Working across painting, print, sculpture and installation, he has developed an ever evolving practice. He is self taught, not having received a fine art education.
Kadir describes himself as a ‘re-emerging’ artist, having taken an extensive forced break from creative practice (a stark reality for many artists who face socio-economic and cultural barriers) and his pursuits as ‘making work with my heart on my sleeve, that is honest, emotional and personal’. He quarries the intersections of his multiple selves, drawing on autobiography and often using family photographs as source material.
His process consists of recycling, regeneration and repetition—returning to material again and again, sometimes over weeks, months or years to rediscover and re-imagine what it might mean in new orientations of time and space.
‘I make work to try to bring order and clarity to a scattered mind, attempting to perceive the world with a logic that feels constantly out of reach’
Karababa began making live art and his work retains the performative within it, in gesture, voice and movement. The origins of his current output are in the tensions of identity as a second-generation diasporic, working class, gay man—both passing and not belonging, speaking in different voices and languages depending on context.
Karababa’s practice acknowledges the darker, sadder, more lonely gay experience—especially of those who have struggled to find place in any of the worlds they have a foot in. He visualises what he finds difficult to vocalise: that sensation of complete disconnection from the world that feels uniquely personal yet must be universal.
Whilst his paintings are intimate and introspective, the making of which Karababa describes as a kind of ‘soul work’, he also has an expansive, socially engaged practice, conceiving collaborative projects that engage others who share his lived experiences - underrepresented and marginalised people who do not consider themselves artists.
These works, often large in scale, are an opportunity for Kadir to start a conversation about themes important to him. 'High Art, Low Art' and 'From the private collection of Ms Kathy Cahillane' explore questions of accessibility and cultural hierarchies within art institutions, examining how different audiences engage with and are welcomed into artistic spaces.
The ever-growing audio-visual installation and archive, ‘One Song’ speaks of displacement, home and the commonalities of human experience, with the aim of countering negative narratives around migration.
‘One Song’ continues its national tour with two new iterations of the work to be shown at Fabrica, Brighton and Arthouse, Wakefield in 2026.
Selected recent exhibitions, residencies and awards:
Upcoming
One Song, Fabrica, Brighton, UK
One Song, The Arthouse, Wakefield, UK
2025
for my open eyes are tired, Solo exhibition, Salon, Margate, UK
2024
3eib, Space for Swana, London
Queeriosities, Copeland Gallery, London
Townhouse Open, Townhouse Spitalfields, London
One Song, Nucleus, Chatham
Adorn the Common, London, UK
Arts Council Project Grant
2023
SOTA Accessible Art Fair, The Lab, London, UK
Queer and Now, Tate Britain, London, UK
2022
One Song, Museum of the Home, London, UK
Shoreditch and Hoxton Art Fund Award
2021
Collecting as Practice (Delfina Foundation Residency), London, UK
We reach for peaks of impossible light, Fixagon, London, UK
What light there is (ACA Residency), Northumberland, UK
Contemporary Remote (Outlandia Residency), Glen Nevis, UK
and part of my heart remains there, Dartington Hall, Devon, UK