Istanbul-born, Atlanta-based mixed media artist & Designer
Process shot of a giant glow-in-the-dark papier-mache Sun I made for a black-light dance party, along with 5-6 other glowy planets :)
a little about me
My creative journey has been a winding road through different mediums spanning printmaking, illustration, painting, digital art, and more recently animation and film. I graduated from SCAD-Atlanta in 2017 with a BFA in graphic design and a minor in advertising. Soon after I realized my passion lay not in corporate work, but more collaborative spaces where I could use my mentor experience in creative workshops, or in supporting non-profit projects. I get excited by the artifacts of process left behind as subjects transition between mediums. I’m passionate about holding creative space for others. I often play with techniques of artificial weathering on my 3D projects as another layer that alters perception of the age of the piece. It’s been a long road to get here, but I’m finally feeling comfortable embracing my jack of all trades artistic identity, and leaning into wherever the curiosity leads.
My personal art combines an asemic writing approach to glyphs with up-cycling and found objects, that are given new mysterious meanings by the marks and symbols I add. The marks have no pre-defined meaning or symbolism other than what the viewer places upon it. My goal is to explore that boundary where intentional mark-making dissolves into spontaneous shapes. The concept is based on the idea of time being a force that breaks down meaning in recorded communication. I wondered what would happen if I started from a stream of consciousness space where there was no inherent meaning to begin with, and the idea has grown from there. Sometimes the forms are momentary aesthetic decisions, sometimes certain shapes stick around my brain and become enlarged and elevated, or are crafted to hold particular symbolic value.
My creative approach is to keep the concept open to change, and embrace chaos elements wherever I can. the natural form of the wood, marks or dents in an object can become focal points to be highlighted by the marks added to the form. There is a loose idea of slowly developing a mysterious mythology, one that’s just as foreign to me as its creator.
This idea started with me discovering a childhood sketch of a made up alphabet I drew as an 11 or 12 year old. Finding the sketches sparked a process of revisiting these random glyphs I had played with, and I found great catharsis and healing in revisiting and acknowledging a creative idea that had been put on pause from my childhood. It has gradually grown into a much wider exploration than I could have imagined, and its been a very therapeutic way to get back into making and exploring with a child-like curiosity. I don’t have to know where this is going, because the whole process is about letting go into a flow state of creation, and seeing what emerges the more I pull on the thread.
Professionally, I’m focused on finding collaborative projects in my community where I can leverage my various skills in the service of a person-centered mission or cause. I wouldn’t be where I am without the mentorship of all my creative friends and teachers. I believe trauma-informed arts programs and resources are desperately needed to give us ways to reach out, and find healthy ways of engaging and communicating. I’m hoping to bring my childhood trauma-informed background together with my passion for holding creative space to support ways of coming together, creating together, and healing together.
At the last burn I attended, a volunteer took headshots of everyone for a yearbook. This one sums up a lot about me in one photo :)
Got one of my small glyph sketches scanned in and made into a mask print.
