The Republic's Family of Artists: "Symphony of Light"

The archive of the artist family of Dr. Oylum Öktem, artist, academic, and writer, on which she worked for twenty years, and which has made significant contributions to the development of sculpture, ceramics, music, literature, and painting from the founding of our Republic to the present day, has been published by YEM Yayın under the title The Artist Family of the Republic: “Symphony of Light”.

Both the book and the exhibition, which were prepared simultaneously with the exhibition of the same name opened by Oylum Öktem at Yapı Kredi Bomontiada on October 22, 2024, were designed by Cem Günübek. Oylum Öktem invites her readers on a high journey interwoven with art, consisting of photographs, a crystal-lamped piano, paintings, sculptures, sketches, and documents. The information that archives, described as the past, and elegant struggles elevated by art are values that will endure through all ages, is re-remembered.

Oylum Öktem spent a lifetime tracing the family archive, which reached its centenary with the absolute interest of one person in each generation and with faith in times of peace. Through the book, the 'uniting' story of the maternal and paternal families, who raised two internationally recognized sculptors, her father Tankut Öktem and her uncle Haluk Tezonar, and the civilized environment in which great artists grew up, becomes understandable. Öktem describes this process and the purpose of preparing the book as follows:

"I have always been grateful to my ancestors for the consciousness they passed on to the future. My joy in my effort to transmit to future generations whose faces I will not see goes beyond myself, stemming from a belief in endless flow. This process showed that art and consciousness maintain a high existence. The existence of the book meant that the time had come for the values existing in the fundamental consciousness entrusted to our lifetime to come to light at the dawn of the second century of the Republic.

These archive boxes, preserving this high evidence, were kept for 100 years with the absolute interest of one person in each generation, and they overcame wartime to reach peace. They reached from generation to generation, to me, to the future. How lucky we all are..."

“The Artist Family of the Republic, for over 100 years, with the absolute interest of one person in each generation, passed down this unique archive from hand to hand to me, to the future. They preserved this unique archive with such meticulous care, as if the gate of a temple would collapse if a single frame were missing, overcoming wartime and the lives in the cities they went to as the founding generation for their duty.

They must have known that remembering root memory is the strongest branch to hold onto in the future.

I was created like a memory, bringing together the archive, interested in giving meaning to photographs, letters, works, poems, postcards, drawings, and recording each unique life interwoven with art that I witnessed in the past. It was like revisiting the spaces that inspired every member of the family and preserved their art, like opening magical doors.

This unique archive, which has reached me and the future with the absolute interest of one person in each generation for five generations, allowed me to transition into a space where I could observe several worlds simultaneously.

I slowly lifted the long green cover left to prevent the keys of the magical crystal-lamped piano from getting cold, so as not to startle time. I heard again the lyrics of a noble woman, an artist, Bedia Hanım, who gave life to elegant tangos and joyful music.

I rejoined this journey, which is as real as it is rare in the history of world art.

The marriage of two artists from two different families brought together and transformed the light radiating from the notes heard over time from the art of thirteen artists, which they gifted to the heavens, into a symphony.

My elders, who undertook important tasks to spread enlightenment to the root memory in the enlightenment of the Republic, were, as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk said, 'those who first felt the light on their foreheads.'

It was also important to understand the process through which they went as the creative soldiers of the great modernization effort that marked the last century of Turkey.

I re-observed today, from their perspective, the brave, monumental times experienced in the workshops of two great artists from my family, two internationally renowned sculptors, Tankut Öktem and Haluk Tezonar, who gave identity to the city squares of Thrace, the Aegean, Istanbul, and Anatolia, and produced magnificent monuments that defined those squares.

As their grandchildren, it was a strong feeling within me to trace the bright faith in art and science in the lives of my enlightened grandmothers, who set an example for future generations as the founding generation of women of the Republic and raised two artists, and to leave their evidence to history.

Each of them had passed along their own paths without haste, with a certainty they seemed to have known before. In political storms or personal breakdowns outside, they clung to their art and did not abandon their focused ideals.

It was as if they were born only for art and met each other in the same geography. They produced more and greater works in their lifetimes than could fit into one life. All together, they became a 'Symphony of Light.'

The works they carried from the past to the future were not merely carriers of artistic meaning; they also preserved the social need and knowledge that they were sure would be understood when the time came. They were not just artists; they were guides who saw the realities of life, and whose teachings spread into infinite time after they physically departed from this world. The priority of their art was always humanity. If, when the time came, my desire for social healing emerged as a strong feeling overflowing from my heart to my hands, I owe this as a bond to my ancestors.

I believe that with this book, we will be able to see the photographs, documents, works reflecting the artists' emotions and thoughts, and the periods in which each artist lived within their own reality, to grasp the social events determined by the dynamics of the last century, and to understand their art within this historical process.

With the book 'The Artist Family of the Republic: Symphony of Light,' the knowledge that the correct construction of the future is possible as long as values that will dominate all ages exist stands before us as a patient, monumental legacy. With this book, I also undertake the task of carrying the most precious fundamental treasure from myself to the future.”