Her Seeds Sewn By My Hand

When I was 8 years old I would spend hours in a small nook of my home making stuffed animals by hand of imaginative creatures, opening a magical portal of mysticism and the purest form of my creativity. My Yiayia, who would watch my Great Grandmother cross stitch, taught me how to use a sewing machine and make tapestries. My mother who watched her mother and her mother’s mother make sweaters and blankets taught me how to crochet and knit. I would sit at the feet of all these women I idolized, and watch as their hands moved rhythmically with such artistry and skill. Every stitch sewn with intention and care, the clarity of the mind as a meditative space that I visit, a trade secret that weaves the tactile women in my family. These seeds were planted in her curious mind by the nimble hands of the women that shaped her. If my younger self could sit at my feet and observe my craftsmanship, would she be just as amazed? Biomorphism is a process of organic abstraction of nature’s designs through soft sculpture. Craft arts and image making act as a vehicle fortifying my intentions to connect to my lineage of mothers in craft arts and to mother nature.

Hüzün: Better in Tune with the Infinite

Hüzün is a concept in Turkish art that connects to an atmosphere of melancholy and is often found in Turkish literature. My work is an interpolation of these concepts to fit my observations of the contemporary environment I exist in. I reflect on my generation and my feelings about the world’s current events, observing intense change while feeling dejected and separated from the rest of the world. Putting motifs that connect to John Szarkowski’s windows and mirrors, I found my interpretation where I have always felt that the window is mutually constitutive. Meaning that while the artist observes the world from the window, the window itself has reflections. Therefore, while the artist sees their reflection, the world reflects onto them.

“Heaven was the place where you kept alive the dreams of your memories.”

My generation is simply trying to find our heaven, but I am still quite unsure where to begin looking.