Renowned Turkish contemporary artist Gülşen İpiçürük, is a diplomat as well. As being a diplomat, she has had the opportunity to live in various countries, observe their artistic field and grab the chance to represent her country in an international public space through her art exhibitions.

Her artistic life began at the age of 4 with the professional guidance of her artist father. Thus, it is hard to call her as a self-taught artist, yet she chose to maintain her original perspective instead of being instructed about what is right and wrong, find her own way expression in the journey of art. She dedicated herself to art and gained 14 years of experience professionally. Gülşen joined art competitions, mostly winning the first prize, participated in art classes at the Department of Painting and Photography at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Hacettepe University, contributed to collective projects and held many individual exhibitions in Turkey and abroad. Her work has found a merited place in private collections and official government buildings around the world.

In her paintings, she picks the most authentic images and captures the moments of her life. Her artworks evoke the joy of life, magnificence of nature and vibrant energy of movements within the figures through vivid colours. Mostly inspired by impressionism, she creates her own style of art and reflects her own reality via oil paintings onto canvas.

During her diplomatic mission in Botswana, Gülşen held an exhibition entitled “Turkish Reflections” in 2018 through her paintings which she visually introduce Turkey and its culture to the people of Botswana. This exhibition was assessed as an example of an applied way of public diplomacy by the diplomatic corps and the media in Botswana. As a way of representing her country, she enables her artworks to be viewed into the artistic platforms of the countries where she serves as a diplomat. Since then, the members of media and diplomatic corps called her as “artist-diplomat” that inspired her to create a website titled as well and here artistdiplomat.com is born.

Through her paintings Gülşen reflects not only the beauties and culture of her country but also the countries where she is posted. Her upcoming project is an oil painting exhibition with the theme of Africa aiming to be a contribution to the education of African children.

The artist became a diplomat in 2016. After serving for several years at Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Turkey, she was posted to several Turkish Embassies in Turkmenistan, Jordan, Botswana, Sweden and Norway. She is currently serving in Oslo.

Academic Seminar on Art: "A Descriptive Fieldwork on Contemporary Art in Urban Turkey". Warwick University, Department of Social Sciences, Coventry/United Kingdom, 2013