With thanks to Omur Sahin Keyif (Insta: @theartsreporter) for her assistance with this post. You can see Omur’s video interview with gallery founders Defne and Rosie here.
Graduates from Edinburgh and Glasgow have combined forces and talents to open a new gallery in Edinburgh to support young Scottish talent. SANKI is a new contemporary art gallery offering a unique space and seeking to ‘…guide emerging artists and recent graduates from DIY spaces to the professional commercial gallery without the pressure and inaccessibility of grand fine art institutions.’ The name SANKI is an initialism for Synergy of Art, Narrative, Knowledge and Inspiration, also translating from Turkish as ‘as if’, hinting at the gallery’s tantalisingly-hidden location beneath the Krem Karamel bakery and cafe in Edinburgh’s Inverleith district.
The gallery is committed to selecting the best of new Scottish and international talent, allowing collectors and buyers to interact with the country’s most exciting contemporary voices in art, while affording established artists the opportunity to display their work and nurture conversations and collaborations across the art community.
SANKI was founded by musician and composer Defne Dogru (University of Glasgow, Music BMus, 2024), whose passion for music and the arts inspired her to create a space where artists of all disciplines can intersect, fostering dialogue and innovation. The gallery is directed and curated by Rosie Hodgson Smith (Edinburgh College of Art, Painting BA Hons, 2025) who is an emerging artist in her own right, with a bold and vibrant curatorial approach.
SANKI’s inaugural exhibition Environmental Rendering brings together emerging artists who have come onto the scene during drastic environmental and societal change: life becoming inseparable from the internet, war and conflict witnessed in real time, the advent of generative AI, polarised politics, and climate change. It features artists from across Scotland and Europe responding to the challenge of interrogating and reimagining humanity’s new environments.
