Artist and writer based in Toronto and sometimes Istanbul, interested in creating and telling stories about art. She likes to wander in the intersection of literary fiction and art writing, inspired formally by interdisciplinary studies, fantasy fiction, and the Victorian era; and thematically by artistic representations of melancholia, the Rückenfigur, myths, and the Pre-Raphaelites.
Cigdem Asatekin MacInnis holds an MFA in Art Writing from School of Visual Arts, New York; along with a BFA in Painting, and an MBA in Arts Management from esteemed universities in Turkey, where she is originally from. She worked within various fields of Istanbul’s contemporary art world for five years, including art galleries, festivals, the Biennial, art magazines, and museums. MacInnis is the co-founder of Artwalk Istanbul: the first guided gallery tour service in the country. After moving to New York and receiving her MFA in 2017, she proceeded to become the Managing Editor for the program’s publication Degree Critical. From 2020 to 2024, MacInnis was editor and coordinator for curator and art historian Sarah Corona and her Tribeca gallery SARAHCROWN. She was the Research Coordinator at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Modern Literature and Culture (MLC) Research Centre until July 2025, a centre which focuses on researching early twentieth-century modern art and literature within topics such as avant-garde art, visual culture, Canadian Modernism, and modernist life writing. MacInnis is currently on maternity leave.
MacInnis has been writing, editing, and translating for art spaces, collectors, curators, and artists professionally. Her critical writing appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Degree Critical, Art Spiel, private collections and catalogues, and more. She is open for commissions at cigdem dot asatekin at gmail dot com.
As a painter, MacInnis once asked for artist Chris Martin’s advice for creative block. In following it prudently, she has been a recluse for years and has last shown work in a group exhibition in 2018. Since then, she painted tiny pictures of cats and depressive self portraits, hoarded ideas, and abandoned projects, including a human size pencil lamp.
Cigdem Asatekin MacInnis 