Kırmızı Bahçe / Red Garden, 2023
2023, oya (needle lace) on a string, with blue fragment from garbage bag or shoe cover, a bunch of silver coloured wires, my mother’s hair, fragment from cotton rope (?), frayed piece of green laundry rope, pigeon feather, aluminum foil, copy of the last page from my sister’s journal, adhesive bandage that my son put on my finger for a knife cut, red ribbon, piece of marine rope I found on the beach in İzmir, white laundry rope untied from the gate between the front garden and backyard of the apartment building I lived in as a child, fibres from broom (?), silver wire, fragment of bracelet handed out at family diaspora picnic. 29x23 inches, framed

See other works from the exhibition Biber Bahçesi / Pepper Garden at Access Gallery, Vancouver

Knots and Syllables is a series of works made with an intricate lace technique called oya, traditional to Anatolia (Turkey) and made by knotting. Oya is used in many parts of Anatolia to decorate the edges of scarves, worn mostly by women. The rich iconography of oya often highlights a marginalized relationship with the limits of language. Red hot peppers, for instance, symbolize anger that cannot be -or socially prohibited from being- expressed with words. The varied compositions in this series explore various dimensions of collective anger -and hope- that may at times extend beyond language’s expressive potential.

Related works: Pepper Mountain, Flower and Pepper, Pepper Garden