Born in Bursa 1966, Arkın Ilıcalı is known worldwide by the name Mercan Dede. Ilıcalı, who completed his higher education in Turkey and abroad in the field of visual arts, focused his works mainly on sound and music in the past years. But now, he is recommencing his previous work, which he always retained his interest in and concentrating on photography, print and multimedia fields of visual arts.

His interest in photography began under the guidance of Kayhan Güven, professor at the Press Faculty of Istanbul University. This interest was intensified by his engagement with ebru, a traditional Turkish fine art, under the stewardship of Nur Taviloğlu, professor at the İstanbul University Fine Arts Academy. He was invited to open a ‘photography and ebru’ exhibition in Saskaaton by a Canadian expert who was impressed by his works. This was followed by him suspending his education in journalism and starting the Bachelor of Fine Arts at Saskatchewan university. After completing his schooling at the printing department, of which Charles Ringnes was the head, he moved to Montreal to earn a Masters of Fine Arts in the Studio Arts programme at Concordia University. At the end of his six years of masters studies in Concordia, he put an end to his academic work in printing techniques to give priority to his musical works. In 2001 he was the only Turkish artist to be invited to participate in the “Artist International Direct Support” project, supported by Nelson Mandela and Dalai Lama. As the part of this project, his prints were collected into a book together with those of other artists from various countries.

In 2011 he exhibited “Army of Lovers” at EKAVART Gallery Istanbul and later at CER Modern in Ankara. In 2012 he and Carlito Dalceggio exhibited their recent works “Revolution Revelation” at Borusan Music House in Istanbul. This exhibition had more than 60.000 visitors. In 2015 he exhibited “Ancient Time Machine” at EKAVART Gallery Istanbul and later at Büyük Efes Art Gallery in Izmir.