Istanbul-born, Atlanta-based mixed media artist + maker
Me in the backyard with my biggest piece I’ve finished so far. It’s called “Junkyard Stele” and was upcycled from a discarded framed painting I’ve been adding to for 4 years.
A LITTLE ABOUT ME
I am a mixed-media maker who works across painting, printmaking, sculpting, illustration, cosplay, film and photography. After completing my degree in graphic design and working in the field, I experienced severe burnout and depression. Finding my passion to make again became a key part of my recovery. As a queer first-generation neurodivergent Turkish immigrant, I've been an outsider in most spaces. I realize now I'm most at home when collaborating or creating from a flow state.
I've found I can work through executive dysfunction more effectively by keeping concepts open to change, and incorporating chaos elements wherever I can find them. I maintain inspiration by allowing projects to evolve. It’s been a long road, but I’m finally embracing my jack of all trades creative self, with all of its wandering curiosities, and reframing my neurodiversity not as an obstacle, but as a core part of my creative identity.
WHY I MAKE
I make to rekindle my own hope. I aim to create from an open flow state to overcome my own doubts and anxieties, to get me out of my head and into my hands.
My current approach combines asemic glyph writing and upcycled found objects. I find bits and pieces around me, and give cast-offs a second life. Artifacts of process and faux weathering techniques further obscure the origin of the material. The symbols themselves play with concepts of time and the ephemeral nature of meaning. I want to invite those who interact with my art to build their own myths.
The glyph idea began as an alphabet of made up marks I created as an 11 or 12 year old and taped up and saved in a shoebox. At that age, I was a very isolated kid in a chaotic home environment, spending time between Turkiye and North Carolina. In Istanbul, a city where cultures, continents and histories overlap, I was exposed to layers of stories, both known and hidden. In particular, I was surrounded by symbols I couldn’t read -- mosque calligraphy, Arabic, Ancient Greek and Roman on old ruins, cuneiform tablets, gravestones -- wondering what lost perspectives they held.
Rediscovering my alphabet as an adult became a spark. I found great catharsis and healing in revisiting and building on a creative idea that had been put on indefinite pause. I make to honor the curiosity of my inner child, who dealt with so much chaos and uncertainty by dreaming up his own worlds.
Process shot of a giant glow-in-the-dark papier-mache Sun I made for a black-light dance party.
At the last burn I attended, a volunteer took headshots of everyone for a yearbook.
