Working primarily in pencil, ink and collage, I have developed a method of drawing that has evolved into a versatile language of expression informed by the cultural and psychic forces and ruptures in my life.
Born into a strict Muslim family and raised in the Midwest, I spent much of my youth shuttling back and forth to Turkey, from West to East, from urban to rural, from secular to religious, from isolation to community. In this fractured reality it was difficult to form lasting friendships. For entertainment, I withdrew into an interior world of doodling, daydreaming, poetry, and highly detailed journaling. The forms and figures in my work express a kind of distorted or melting calligraphy that exists in a liminal space between drawing and writing. One can discern in my work an interweaving of human, erotic, plant and animal forms within a labyrinth of curves and lines. But this technique is neither intentional nor predesigned. Like the obsessive doodling I did as a youth, my drawings emerge spontaneously and organically.
My work spans a wide range of scale and subject, from portraits and mythological figures to large-scale ink works that engage with landscape, the body and current events. What connects them is method. I often begin drawing with eyes closed, scribbling with both hands to create a kind of Rorschach scaffolding or architecture which I later flesh out with color and shading. The figuration and forms resolve themselves unpredictably, not unlike surrealist automatic writing. Throughout this process, both coherent and incoherent words and phrases enter my mind and I may choose to incorporate this pseudo language into the work.
I have no formal training and am self-taught. My process of drawing is both an art practice and a meditation, using simple tools and techniques to give form to the complexity within subconsciousness. Academically, my credentials are in English. I have a bachelors in English from Cornell University, a masters in English literature from Mercy University and a masters in library science from Pratt Institute. I am currently the library director for Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York