Artist Bio

Karya Levni (b. 1999, Türkiye) is a Brussels-based oil painter. Her work combines rigorous study of European old-master techniques with her lived experience as a 1st-generation migrant woman, confronting themes of isolation, femininity, heritage, and resilience.

Her training began in Türkiye under watercolour master Rukiye Garip, whose discipline shaped her foundation.

Turning to oil painting, she sought formal training in Berlin, but ultimately took up a self-directed path by studying the lives and methods of the European masters and learning through master copies, as their apprentices once did.

Her practice coexists in unresolved tension: between her adoration for the European masters and the knowledge that they devalued the arts of her people and silenced stories like hers. She works inside that contradiction rather than around it.