As a person straddling cultures, I always am aware of how things change depending on one’s perspective. Everything changes including one’s own perspective. Istanbul, the city I live in, is like the definition of change but I get ahead of myself.
Originally I embarked on a path in art and architecture in the US, studying art and architecture at the University of Illinois in Chicago. At the age of 20, kismet, in the form of a sense of adventure, led me to Istanbul, the fascinating city I have called home for most of my adult life. My artistic/architectural studies took a backseat as I was drawn deeper into life in Istanbul. I could only continue my studies in an English speaking environment, so my fate became linked to Boğazici University (where I still teach a course today). I became an English instructor and educator who specialized in social and emotional skills and helped found the Boğazici University Center for Peace Education and Research. In travels all over Turkiye, I have tried to influence the future by opening Turkish teachers’s minds to less authoritarian ways of teaching.
Now I am following my original dream, long deferred, of being an artist.
For the past 7 years, I have taken painting and drawing classes whenever I could and participated and worked in various artists’ studios in Istanbul. While in NYC I took in-person classes at the Art Students’ league in New York City. The pandemic gave me freedom to paint, paint, paint! I took as many online classes as I could, mainly from the Art Students’ league of NYC right in my home studio in Istanbul.
My work reflects flux. Istanbul is constantly in flux. It was the center of Byzantium, then the Ottoman empire and now secular nationalism gives way to shall we say, a less secular view. Vestiges abound as do ironies, inconsistencies, as different eras exist simultaneously. Layers on layers.
My paintings reflect layers and changes. I have done a series on the recent earthquake in Turkiye to attempt to emotionally process the immensity of destruction. ( Total proceeds from any sale of the earthquake series goes towards support of children in the affected areas.) Other series I have done are of the city and how it has morphed from one historical era to another; how it has changed and yet the vestiges remain. Another series is of changes in myself and in my body.
No matter the change depicted, there is always a hope in my works. Whether I consider, the constant flux that is my city, the beauty of nature, the precariousness of life, there is always hope for tomorrow.
I paint in oils, acrylics and watercolors. The paintings I have selected here are mainly watercolors. Although seemingly unpopular in the contemporary art world, I love watercolors as they are sustainable, non-toxic, and perfect to depict layering. I also love the way one is surprised by the emergence of a glorious bloom or a muddy mess. Like my life, watercolors flow, always a bit unexpectedly.
