Artist's Statement
I am a contemporary artist and journalist.
Repetition, motion, rhythm, geometry and vivid colors are essential elements in my artworks.
I am influenced by abstract expressionism and surrealism.
After exploring different media through my early stages, I am now more focused on oil painting and lino and screen printmaking.
I run my painting procedure project by project which means I decide a theme and create my paintings, installations, and film making according to the theme, which makes my style close to conceptual art.
My works usually intend to convey a social responsibility message.
In my first term project, I fundamentally referred to the Genesis mythos, Mesopotamian and Greek mythology through abstract expressionism. Each painting evolved from a combination of carefully planned structures, circles and the direct sensation of application and removal of the paint from the canvas.
As for my current practice, I tried to bring a journalistic approach to my paintings and practices. I have been particularly interested in how art can help to express the internal flow of emotions and rationalize inner thoughts through a journalistic precision. I also try to question the relation of aesthetics with society and artists.
As an artist, I question what it means to make art that effectively decorates the interiors of others and thereby adds more objects to a world that is arguably full enough already. Hence, I have been painting imagined environments for my artwork to inhabit. They invite definitions of art, and the privileging of the unique object over functional design and mass production. The disparate mix of multi-cultural references implied by these comfortable contemporary living spaces has previously been my focus. For example, when representing the malnutrition of Yemeni children through repetitive painting of gingerbread figures, or more recently in translating the poetic prose on ancient Mesopotamian carvings into the visual language of emojis. As the recurrent motif of concentric circle in my painting suggests, I continue to grow by gradually expanding upon a core of experiential knowledge, using practice-based research to gradually build new layers of understanding.
Interior architecture, culinary arts, literature, documentaries, spiritualism and Turkish cultural heritage are some of the main veins I am nourished from for my artistic creation.