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My art practice, primarily rooted in comparative research within cultural and political domains, aligns with a specific representative aesthetic and graphical exploration, particularly focusing on visual translation of languages by rejecting semantic frames. I have multiple research interests that directly and indirectly touch upon migration, cultural adaptation, and national identities.

Contemporary art, to me, questions the consecration of anything related to art and art per se. A very personal response to the concerns of the present social and political world, expressing oneself, is the ultimate personal approach to my works. I explore different tools to translate that need for production into a form. Re-creating semiotic systems is my predominant conceptual reference origin to represent what I am living through. Personal funds and memories serve as art materials, and my process transmits a sense of reality that manifests itself. My extensive architectural education allows me to be experimental with structural tools and always think in the context of space and culture. My thesis subject, in particular, helped me establish a comparative understanding of how epistemological differences of time and context are important in shaping cultures.

My works focus on the notion of language, textual materials, alphabets, syntax, semantic frames, fragmentation, reality, and borders through the lens of research, digital painting, and mixed media techniques. I like to mesh my determined understanding of reality by using very personal stories, referencing stitching, calligraphy, and other traditional Islamic art forms, along with cultural objects from my homeland (referred to as Anatolia, located in the Middle East). Thanks to my upbringing, especially with my religious grandma, the abstractness of Islamic and Anatolian art traditions, which go far beyond decorative craftsmanship, has influenced my aesthetic sense. At a young age, I discovered the timeless artistry of the customs of Anatolia, where symbologies converge to create a contemporary essence of purity.

The possibility of finding meaning behind absurdity and the transmission between meaning and nonsense create dynamism and add the element of time to art subjects. Through multiple transitions of meanings and absurdity, I can address my insecurities while feeding my pseudo-intellectualism, bringing important topics into the discourse such as identity, women, time, culture, and ‘others,’ by means of patching mostly nonsensical papers, texts, and alphabets.

Whom I like: Irma Blank, Maria Lai, George Maciunas, Erol Akyavaş, Jacques Village, Luis Barragan, Squeak Carnwath, Yasmine Nasser Diaz, Lara Assouad, and many other contemporary artists who embrace a critical approach duly creating a new aesthetic. 

Latest Articles / Statements

Transnationalism in art, national pronouns, political correction etc.

Gender pronoun questions lead me to an epiphany about national pronouns. Certain ideologic/ patriotic assumptions tell us to accept what the national identity of our passports dictates. I am dreaming in near future the question of “what is your national pronoun?” will be the norm. I do not have a solid answer yet, most probably it will be something like “ohh, I do not believe in nation-states but I would say I am an ethnic cocktail. I am from Turkey.” Am I demanding too much policy discourse from the art world? Do I care because I am simply a migrant in Europe?  >> read more

Multiculturalism and Museums

The western definition of culture based on the time-travelling approach, includes the tree-age system, ranked people who had less equipped as primitive in the hierarchic frame of ethnography. Urbanization and the industrial revolution are still considered the biggest human development in history therefore some civilizations owning them the very first creates the idea of privileged society. This brings the question of what makes a society primitive under what categorization. Hence, the question emerges how this western perspective applies to the exhibiting strategies? Assimilating or exoticizing?
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Critical remarks on Museum and problems of nationalism

Prussian Art Politics had a lot to do with shaping museum power in Germany. The 19th-century museum boom reflects upon the museum architecture by reviving the classical temple architecture elements in the museum exterior. The classical style of architecture represented the noble aspects of civilizations; hence it becomes the vocabulary of museum architecture within the ideological frame.
>> read more