I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I sort of expect that most people do, to some degree. The love part of my own relationship with Instagram comes primarily from my connections with other artists. I’m drawn to the generosity of artists who share the bits and pieces of their studio practices, their successes and their failures, the consistency of their work ethic, and the small glimpses into their day-to-day, non-studio lives. I’m well aware of the ability of the grammable image to deceive or to self-mythologize. Instagram, like all things, has changed since I joined in 2014 and the algorithmic suppression of lower-profile, emerging artists is a major disappointment. That said, I am still thankful enough for the relationships that I’ve been able to maintain over the years, as well as the new, online ones that I’ve been lucky to develop.
One such artist who keeps my Instagram adoration afloat is the Hudson Valley-based artist, Yasemin Kaçkar-Demirel. Although we have never met in person, our work has been included in two physical exhibitions together: "18", a group exhibition of 18 abstract artists at the Janice Charach Gallery in suburban Detroit AND "Painting at Night", organized by Artist/Mother Podcast and juried by my friend (and phenomenal artist) Allison Reimus. I was immediately smitten with Kaçkar-Demirel’s ability to work with a variety of two- and three-dimensional materials (oil paint, embroidery, insulation foam, yarn, etc., etc.) while maintaining her own consistent voice and vision. The irregular, highly specific shapes within her abstractions bring to mind land masses, geographical boundaries and islands. Her work, however, resists many boundaries within traditional painting and incorporates chance as part of her making process. Kaçkar-Demirel often uses found materials and accidental stains, the detritus and residual marks of the painting practice, as a means of reflecting on the mutability of natural and human-made landscapes.
In the interview below, Kaçkar-Demirel discusses both Susanna Clarke’s 2020 novel, Piranesi, as well as the novel’s eponym, the 18th century, Italian artist and architect, Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Known for his layered etchings of inescapable, imagined prisons, Pirenesi’s interior worlds border on abstraction. We lose the ability to discern direction. Conventional depictions of reality crumble. In "Two dots or lavender clouds", one of Kaçkar-Demirel’s more frenetic, mixed-media works, I feel immersed in the same sort of disorienting un-reality evoked by Clarke’s novel and Piranesi’s prison etchings. The linear, embroidered paths lead my eye around the surface, diligently mapping both the stains and deliberately applied areas of paint. The tracks seem to weave and retrace their steps, linking explosions of paint, cyanotype prints and areas of camouflaged stitching. In spite of the crystallographic balance, the elements push centrifugally outward, bending and distorting the edges with their delicate and persistent force.
Through July 17, 2024, you can find Kaçkar-Demirel’s work in ‘Scapes, a group show at Elisa Contemporary Art gallery in Riverdale, NY. She will also have work included in Peep Space’s 2024-2025 Flat Files program, with an opening exhibition in Fall 2024. Kaçkar-Demirel will be spending the summer in Bodrum, Turkiye where she will develop and experiment with mixed media works on paper, involving relief structures, blockprints and cyanotypes.
Thank you, Yasemin, for your generous and insightful responses
and your willingness to share a peek into your studio practice. Here’s to an
in-person meeting at some point in the future!🍻
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| Yasemin Kaçkar-Demirel, Leap island, 2022, fragment of paint palette, insulation foam, modeling compound, acrylic and oil paint, 8 x 9 x 1 1/8 inches |
1. What’s your sign? If you are astrologically inclined, feel free to give your Sun/Moon/Rising. Do you identify with the characteristics of your sign(s)?
Both my Sun and Rising sign are Sagittarius. My Moon sign is Aquarius. I do identify with their characteristics in the sense that I consider myself free-spirited and try to avoid getting tangled in possessive relationships or restrictive environments. I have a curious nature, a love for learning new things, and eclectic interests. I enjoy traveling and exploring places, as well as testing materials and taking risks in my studio. While I generally have a joyful and lively disposition, there is also an introverted, introspective side of me that is very emotion and intuition driven. I feel quasi-comfortable within groups or crowds, and definitely prefer more intimate, one on one interactions. I like to think of myself as being quite observant and I enjoy listening rather than talking. I have a highly romantic side too but in a very down-to-earth kind of way.
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| Yasemin Kaçkar-Demirel, Wonder of a ruin, 2024, oil on oil paper, 12x 9 inches |
2. What is your morning routine?
I have to say that I do not follow a strict routine. It
tends to change frequently especially depending on the season. But a typical
morning involves preparing my son for school and after sending him off, I brew some
coffee. I briefly check my e-mails and Instagram. I take some time to greet the
nature outside of my window. I pick a poetry book from my library and read at
random, taking notes of any verses that resonate with me. I also recently began
practicing meditation with an online community in real time. After it ends, I step
in to my studio which is in the basement of my home. I start by spending some
time planning my tasks for the day, and organizing the physical space. I make
dance movements and stretch my body. Depending on the season, I incorporate outside
walks to my morning-to-noon routine as well.
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| Yasemin Kaçkar-Demirel, Two dots or lavender clouds, 2022, paint stains and paint residues, hand embroidery, cyanotype on fabric, dye, on found textile |
I cannot think of a time that I cried, but I do get chills, teary-eyed or awestruck very frequently when I view artworks. Some specific moments stand out, especially from my youth. The first one might be a cliché for some, but the first ever artwork I remember that astonished me was Michaelangelo’s fresco in The Sistine Chapel. I was in middle school, visiting Italy with my mother. Seeing the figures so masterfully executed on the ceiling had a profound impact on me then. I wanted to reach out to the ‘Hands of God and Adam’. I was drawn to the delicacy, fragility and emotion of the hand gesture. Likewise, seeing the similar effect on the Pietá sculpture, the marble absorbing and projecting the emotion of grief and compassion was equally thrilling. Another memory is when I had visited the archeological site of the ancient city of Ephesus near Izmir, Turkiye. Walking on the marble stones on the site, the statues, the amphitheater, the infamous façade of the library and the promenade of columns have since been feeding my fascination with structural remnants and interest in transformation, bridging the past and the future by making art in the present moment. One last memory I would like to mention was on the very first day I entered my alma mater Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul as an undergraduate student. I was teary-eyed seeing the sunlight shine on the replica of the Hellenistic statue of Niké, known as the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
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| Yasemin Kaçkar-Demirel, Décollage, 2023, oil and oil stick on linen, 16 x 12 inches |
I am currently reading Piranesi, by Susanne Clarke. I was
intrigued by its title because I love Piranesi’s architecture drawings and
especially his series of intricate etchings called Carceri (prisons). Hence, I
am quite attracted to the novel’s utopic labyrinth like setting, perhaps an island
with its layered structure, halls full of statues, water flowing throughout and
vestibules. The mysterious plot where new characters emerge through a quest for
a ‘distributary’ world, sustains my interest. Before this book, I listened to
the audiobook of A Wizard of Earthsea, the first one in a series by Ursula Le
Guin, which, similar to Piranesi, followed a character’s quest to attain magic
through journeys to various islands. I tend to forget the details of what I
read over time, but a quote, a feeling or a description of a setting generally
stays with me. Currently, I am also listening to the audiobook of Life with
Picasso by Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake. I find Gilot’s insightful account
of their complex relationship with Picasso and conversations about paintings
and processes within their circuit of prominent art figures interesting and
useful. I have the hard copy as well but since I am a slow reader I gain more
momentum by listening to the audiobook.
As for music, I am presently listening to Erlend Oye’s new album La Comitiva, Céu and the new single Like I say (I runaway) by Nilufer Yanya.
5. Tell us four
truths about yourself and one lie:
a. I
sometimes dance in my head as if I am creating a mental choreography
b. I am
left-handed but I recently became aware that I have a better tendency to
dribble basketball and iron with my right hand. .
c. When I
was in college in Istanbul, I sang ‘It is only a Paper Moon’ at a jazz music festival.
d. I love
wall tennis and paddle boarding.
e. I prefer
text messaging or facetiming rather than talking on the phone.
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| Yasemin Kaçkar-Demirel, Autumnal ascend, 2023, yarn and vinyl paint on monk’s cloth, 25 x 20 inches |
6. This is the wild card question. What do you listen to in the studio? Does what you’re listening to change the way that you make your work?
I strongly believe that all I hear, see, listen to or experience have their way of seeping into my work. The music I listen to depends largely on my mood and the kind of mediums and process I am engaged with in the studio. While I cannot say that listening to music changes my work in a concrete and representational way, listening to a variety of genres certainly inspires me to save my paint palettes and paint rags to use them as a source to generate collages, blockprints, sculptures and textile works. Similar to noticing variations of sounds, harmonies, melody and rhythm in music, I regard my painting practice as a conduit of possibilities expanding in tandem with a multitude of mediums. When I am painting with oils, I tend to listen to instrumental music or with minimal lyrics, such as jazz, opera, classical or indie/electronic and ambient music, to cultivate concentration. For this purpose, I prefer rhythmic, improvisational or repetitive tunes.
At other times, I simply prefer the sound of silence, or
some tunes intrinsically pop up in my head and I find myself listening to them
while painting. When I am making mixed media drawings or collages, I choose
songs with lyrics which can be very eclectic, from Brit Pop to Radiohead. When
I am doing mostly slower paced or rhythmically repetitive tasks like priming or
shaping a sculpture, rughooking or embroidery, I pick podcasts, audiobooks, and
talk shows in English and in Turkish on Youtube. Some favorite podcasts are
Ariacode, On Being, Poetry Unbound and Sound and Vision.
I also like listening to interpretations of well-known pieces
such as Pink Martini’s take on Ravel’s Bolero or Jacques Louissier’s take on
Bach suites. Growing up in Istanbul, I acquired an affinity to a wide range of
musical genres including nostalgic French and Italian songs, musicals, jazz, and
classical music, as well as Turkish music from Alaturka to pop. While listening
to music, I feel as though a sound space gets transmitted to my painting. This
space releases an atmospheric quality inviting me into a subconscious state
similar to the structural cues and traces of places I observed transform and
dissolve into what I call a beyond space. I have been thinking about this
beyond space lately, where remains of places dissipate, memories wilt, end and
begin again, continue as angles, lines, gestures, as a new realm within sea,
sky and land. By maneuvering the paint through sound and intuition, I observe
the work becoming a welcoming container to what arises. I love this aspect of
abstraction in music and in painting coinciding, proposing open-ended
directions, sensations and unleashing obscurity for the work. Aside from sound and rhythm, a lyric or a
verse in a song or poem can evoke a feeling that I contemplate which can later
end up as a title to a work.
7. What other artist(s) would you like to see answer these questions?
Sarah Arriagada, Seher Erdogan, Niki Kriese, Ashley Garret, Melissa Capasso.
Born in Istanbul in 1978, Kackar-Demirel received her MFA from Northern Illinois University, and her BFA from Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul, Turkiye. She has had solo exhibitions at The Yard: City Hall Park, (NYC), Mooney Center Gallery of The College of New Rochelle, (NY), C.A.M. Gallery, (Istanbul, Turkey), Courthouse Gallery of Lake George Arts Project, (Lake George, NY), and McLean County Arts Center, (Bloomington, IL), including her virtual exhibition with Laura A. Sprague Gallery of Joliet Junior College, (Joliet, IL), among other venues. Her works have been exhibited in group shows across the United States as well as internationally in Turkey, Italy, Israel and including KinoSaito in Verplanck, NY, the High Line Nine Galleries in NYC with Visionary Projects and at Ortega y Gasset Projects in Brooklyn, NY. She attended the residency programs at The Bischhoff Inn in Tamaqua, PA, School Of Visual Arts in NYC and AreaOdeon in Monza, Italy. She is a recipient of Moon and Stars Project’s Exhibition Award. Her work has been featured in various catalogs and periodicals including Friend of the Artist, Dovetail, New American Paintings, New Visionary Magazine and Fresh Paint and was included in the online curated registries of The Drawing Center, All She Makes and in the Flat File 2021 Program at Collar Works. She lives and works in Lower Hudson Valley, New York.
@yaseminkackardemirel
www.yaseminkackar.com
All images courtesy of the artist.
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