My work is driven by conventions and societal norms relating to the body prevalent in history both past and present. Plastic surgery, lternative medicine, and ways of predicting the future are belief systems whose underpinnings I am uncertain of. I use my work to illustrate my inability to reconcile the purposes, needs, and motives of these systems and the people who subscribe to them.
I want my work to surprise and challenge people to inspire questioning. Suggesting something extreme, unusual, and irrational is one strategy to achieve this. I formatted these works at products to frame them as packaged for human consumption, inviting the viewer to imagine a relationship with the piece. I hope the viewer will immediately ask if they would or would not use such a product.
I was born in Ankara, received my BSc in Industrial Design from Istanbul Technical University in 2003, and my MFA at the State University of New York at New Paltz Metal program in 2009. My professional experience includes teaching metal classes at SUNY New Paltz, Istanbul Technical University, and Maden Contemporary Jewellery Studio , which I co-founded, as well as my personal contemporary jewelry design and production practice.
Terrifying Beauty (2009)
As a fairly recent development in mass culture, plastic surgery is a system that suggests attaining beauty popularized by the media. Terrifying Beauty focuses on the trends of cosmetic surgery to question conventions of beauty and challenge the function of jewelry as adornment. I created four pieces distorting the face in an unlikely way, contrasting and contradicting the purpose of traditional jewelry.
Ostensible (2010)
Ostensible is a conceptual work that focuses on fashion trends and perceptions of beauty. It explores body and dress as a medium to construct one’s identity. It is a critical approach to understand the trends in fashion and beauty and their connection to self-construction, construction of one’s identity. It includes shirts and dresses that are made of beige color cotton fabric and red thread.
Personas / Rings for Thumb (2017)
In the age of Internet, smart phones become almost new body extensions that are inseparable from human during the day and night. We feel safe with them and naked without them. This habit results in an emergence of a coexisting life for each individual: a life on screen. We are using life on the screen to engage in new ways of thinking about evolution, relationships, politics, sex, and the self. [1] We become more active on the screen than in real life and experience our new identities created by our thumbs’ moves.
Personas is a series of rings made for thumb
[1] Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. Touchstone Book. Published by Simon & Schuster New York
