The Mommy? series uses melty beads—a material from my children’s toys—to create large-scale, text-based works that embody the intersection of motherhood and artistic identity. The series began when my daughter asked me: “Mommy, did you used to be an artist?” This innocently profound inquiry prompted a reflection on the loss of selfhood of the mother.
Each piece in the series is made of approximately 30,000 beads and features candid questions my children have asked, including “Mommy, what was your name before me?”, “Mommy, can you wipe my butt?”, and “Mommy, can I have everything of yours?”
The process of ironing the beads together transforms a mundane domestic chore into an artistic act, serving as a private protest similar to the creation of clay mantı in Ana-Dolu.
The series is ongoing.
2024, melty beads. 70.5 x 95 cm
2024, melty beads. 70.5 x 95 cm
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2024, melty beads. 70.5 x 97cm.
2024, melty beads. 70.5 x 97cm.
2024, melty beads. 70.5 x 97cm.
2024, melty beads. 70.5 x 97 cm.
2024, melty beads. 70.5 x 97cm.
2024, melty beads. 70 x 97cm.
2024, melty beads. 70.5 x 97cm.
2024, melty beads. 70 × 97 cm.
2025, melty beads. 70 × 97 cm.
2025, fuse beads. 70 × 97 cm.
2017-2019, clay and tea on canvas, 70 x 100 cm
Ana-Dolu combines “Anadolu” (Anatolia) with “ana dolu,” meaning “mother-filled” in Turkish.
The work focuses on mantı, a traditional Turkish dumpling that is labor-intensive to prepare and quickly consumed. In Kayseri, mantı is associated with marriage, often used to assess a woman’s domestic skills. By recreating them in clay, I remove their function.
The repetitive act of shaping each dumpling becomes a private, silent form of protest, reflecting on the undervalued labor expected of women. Ana-Dolu is an ongoing project.
2024, Clock, clay and tea, 29 cm, edition of 3 + 1 AP
Mantıksız Saat is a play on words combining mantı (the traditional Turkish dish), mantıksız (meaning “illogical”), and tıksız (suggesting “without movement” or “not working”). This piece continues the exploration of mantı introduced in Ana-Dolu, expanding its metaphorical significance.
2024, clay, approximately 3 × 2 cm each
(variable size installation)
Building on themes from Ana-Dolu, Çiğ Çiğ, Acı Acı explores resistance through the act of shaping çiğ köfte (a traditional Turkish dish) from clay. Like mantı, çiğ köfte becomes a symbol of labor-intensive work, but here it also embodies power, revolution, and protest, represented by the clenched fist. Each clay çiğ köfte reflects the negative space of a fist—a haunting imprint of absence, symbolizing silent protest, unspoken truths, and invisible labor.
This series is ongoing.
2023, eriyen boncuk. 70 x 97 cm.
2024, eriyen boncuk. 70.5 x 97cm.
2023, eriyen boncuk. 70.5 x 95 cm.
2024, eriyen boncuk. 70.5 x 97cm.
2023, eriyen boncuk. 70.5 x 97 cm.
2023, eriyen boncuk. 70 x 97 cm.
2023, eriyen boncuk. 70 x 97 cm.
2024, eriyen boncuk. 70 × 97 cm.
2025, eriyen boncuk. 70 × 97 cm.
2025, eriyen boncuk. 71 × 106 cm.
2024, monotype, acrylic on archival paper, 50 x 35 cm each
Immaculate Conception reinterprets the art historical theme of the Virgin Mary’s sinless conception through a series of prints that merge biological imagery with symbolic representations. Initially appearing to depict ovulation, closer inspection reveals ‘sperm’ as tampon prints and ‘eggs’ as impressions of my breasts.
An exploration of the concept of parthenogenesis as a metaphor for independent artistic creation.
This is an ongoing series.
2024, monotype, acrylic on archival paper, 50 x 35 cm
2024, monotype, acrylic on archival paper, 50 x 35 cm
2024, monotype, acrylic on archival paper, 50 x 35 cm
2024, monotype, acrylic on archival paper, 50 x 35 cm
2024, monotype, acrylic on archival paper, 50 x 35 cm
2024, monotype, acrylic on archival paper, 50 x 35 cm
2024, monotype, acrylic on archival paper, 50 x 35 cm
2024, monotype, acrylic on archival paper, 50 x 35 cm
2024, felt, thread, pencil, fuse-beads, my kids’ baby clothes, fiber fill, 60 × 50 × 8 cm
This piece is a collaboration with my grandmother, who had to drop out of art school after getting married to do housework and has since continued to make crafts as a hobby.
This piece reintroduces her into the art world. For the past two years, she has been making small felt figures and keychains, and in this project, she designed and crafted the heads of my babies.
I decided to create my own babies by filling my childrens old baby clothes with fiber and attaching a head.
A nod to Edvard Munch's The Scream, this work also serves as a meditation on the scream as humanity's first form of communication, as well as the idea of the primal scream. Unlike Munch’s individualistic scream, this is a collective scream, echoing the cry of our times: war, poverty, pandemic, global warming, and the looming threat of the world’s end.
The evil-eye is a long-standing tradition in Turkey, meant to ward off misfortune. In Turkish culture, an evil eye is pinned to the clothes of a newborn for protection. Each of my babies is pinned with evil-eyes made from fuse beads.
This is an ongoing series.
2024, felt, thread, pencil, fuse-beads, my kids’ baby clothes, fiber fill, 60 × 50 × 8 cm
2024, felt, thread, pencil, fuse-beads, my kids’ baby clothes, fiber fill, 60 × 50 × 8 cm
2024, felt, thread, pencil, fuse-beads, my kids’ baby clothes, fiber fill, 60 × 50 × 8 cm
2024, felt, thread, pencil, fuse-beads, my kids’ baby clothes, fiber fill, 60 × 50 × 8 cm
2024, felt, thread, pencil, fuse-beads, my kids’ baby clothes, fiber fill, 60 × 50 × 8 cm
2024, fuse beads and fishing line, 18.5 × 171 cm
2024, ütülenen boncuklar ve olta ipi, 18.5 × 290 cm
Happy Brideday is a piece created as part of my broader exploration into the intersection of childhood and adulthood.
2024, Fuse beads, safety pins, bridal veil, sack filled with soil and diapers. 60 x 100 x 70 cm.
2024, glow in the dark fuse beads, 54.5 × 39.5 cm (text), 26 × 23 xm (moon), 23 × 23 cm (star)
(view in the dark)
2024, cyanotype on archival paper, 25 x 35 cm
2024, cyanotype on archival paper, 25 x 35 cm
2024, cyanotype on archival paper, 25 x 35 cm
2024, cyanotype on archival paper, 25 x 35 cm
2024, Single channel video, 1 min 15 seec.
2024, eriyen boncuk, 45 x 45 cm
2024, eriyen boncuk, 58 x 87cm
2023, Digital C-Print, 80 x 118 cm
2023, Digital C-Print, 90 x 125 cm
