ci demi - THE TRUTH BEHIND REALITY



Born in the middle of the 80’s, Ci Demi is a Turkish photographer and visual story teller from Beyoğlu, Istanbul. Before totally dedicating himself to story telling using photography as his most powerful tool, Ci Demi studied Italian Language and Literature at Istanbul University and worked for advertising agencies as copywriter and creative director.

The variety of channels the artist experimented through time is clearly detectable when observing his photographic gathering. Indeed, Ci Demi’s photographs — swinging from a great example
of photojournalism to the most aesthetically pleasing colours you’ll ever have to chance to see in your life — feel like a love letter to his hometown city: a place barely looking real if filtered through the artist’s personal vision, where every element seem to be fed with curiosity and good intentions.

His very personal and identifier color palette is the result of the artist’s studies of Italian 70’s “Giallos” — as declared by Ci Demi himself. Once these kind of details are noticed, one can’t help by being transported by the cultural-mixed visual code owning a strong presence in Ci Demi’s photographs.

If you think the artist’s visual language is complex enough, here’s an invite to grant a closer inspection to the structure of his pictures: “(...) I take clues from the cinematography of classic horror films” — Ci Demi stated — “even though almost all of my photographs take place in the daytime”. The contrast between the pleasing, pastel color palette and the horror inspiration behind Ci Demi’s photographs is something rarely experimented when it comes to photography, but it helps us understanding the reason why we would not struggle to recognise some similarities between the artist’s photographs and the cinematography of the amazingly visually designed Ari Aster’s “Midsommar”.

Ci Demi’s photographs are enriched with inventiveness, where different inspirations and elements coming from the artist’s life experience are blended together in order to create his distinctive, intimate own world.



Words by Erika Giulietti
Post coordination by Vincent Urbani