“And then, my darling, when the tears run down your cheeks, remember, it’s your soul that bleeds.”
To me, visual art is a way to understand the wounds within me and the wounds of the world. The creative process is a search for the cure. Through painting, pain transforms. I let the colours bleed on the paper and then, in colours, things get clearer. My creative process changes me.
My works edge with abstraction. When you look from afar or loosesly, you can't see clearly what it depicts - the rythm, colours or abstract, geometrical shapes are more dominant when looking from a far. Only when you decide to examine it upclose, you are introduced to the story with painstaking attention to the details and raw yet surreal realism.
I see the world this way. When you take it as a whole, it is all blurry and I can't understand anything. But when I stay with it, I realise, I can feel rhythm, I can identify familiar patterns and then when I come close, I can see unique story of each of us, polarized with obstacles and wounds, and seeing the details, listening to what is behind, the glimpses I got,
There is an eternal fight between life and death. We used to fight physically. Now that we have secured physical conditions, we fight with death mentally. The rising suicide rate in the western countries shows it clearly. Death can’t grasp our bodies so it clenches our minds. It is the truth that can keep us alive.
The truth is like an impulse that echoes through nature, stories and myths and body and mind and soul. It is what connects us and what moves us.
I am trying to capture the connections we often overlook, because I believe the more connections we see and have, the less alone we feel.
Painting changes and transforms me as much as I transform the painting. The images that emerged in my head helped me transcend who I was. Now I hope they can help others.
In my creative process, I like to let the materials, the environment and accidents have a say in what the artwork will be. Why should my intent be more valid than what the paper did? However, the decision of what to keep and what to change still rests on me.
For me, creation is a conversation. Conversation within me - it is a way to understand myself and my feelings. Conversation with the past cultures and the artists that came before me - I often paint out thoughts that were stirred in me by painters, musicians and writers. And conversation with the world and my materials. Painting teaches me to be attentive to my surroundings and appreciate the unexpected.
Thus, I basically work on a blank paper. No underdrawing. I do several sketches and studies before I start, but then I just draw basic composition lines and let it flow as the water wishes and as I feel it.
The resulting work is a careful balance of well thought concept, expressivity and craftsmanship and accidents and mistakes, which reveal the vulnerability of our human nature and the impact outer influences have on our inner world.
