Through my paintings, drawings and installations, I portray my reminiscences of places, which I then transform onto the image’s surface by colors, shapes and patterns. I believe every place and every memory of a place is fragmental and can be broken down to its constituents. Taken out of their context, reconstructing and remapping elements that I once personally experienced enables me to express abstracted narratives.

            Being a Turkish native residing in the United States, I have been influenced by both the architectural/ physical and the emotional aspects of certain environments and view them as great potentials to narrate stories through my works. To the viewer, the plot of these narratives can be familiar or unknown, boundless or limited, conquered or yet to be discovered. I aim to create a ‘chaotic harmony’ by maintaining a balance between these contrasting concepts via the language of abstraction. In other words, it is an act of balancing integration and independence that I intend to reflect through my works.

            I am constantly experimenting with various types of media that would best express my memory-laden work. By using paint and various other media such as ink, graphite, watercolor, pastel, threading, knitting, and resin I create an eclectic dialogue between the oxymoronic elements within my pieces. Besides painting, drawing is also an essential part of my work. At times I portray the rapidity of an idea or a memory only through this medium. This process allows me to capture my thoughts in a direct, concise and focused manner.

            Drawings also enables me to reexamine my thought processes and channel my thoughts into creating compositions that expand into a given space and can at times turn into ephemeral works. Thus, drawings facilitate an open-ended exploration of spaces and places, which can later develop into installations. I find this uncertainty and spontaneity very intriguing.

            With each new work, regardless of the media I am using, I feel as if I am taking a test where there are no right or wrong answers and I am allowed to make mistakes,-- a process whereby I explore many possibilities. What matters to me most, then, is the process of creating a work, and reflecting the feelings associated with the process in the final product. Thus, when I am finished with a certain work, I wish my viewers to experience a process similar to the one I experienced in creating it—spontaneous, fluid, buoyant and unconstrained. To accomplish this, I try to create a personal space for each viewer to interact with my works both visually and mentally, and to give them the freedom to associate different meanings with my works. This, above all, is what drives me most as an artist.

                                                                                                                                                                                               Yasemin Kaçkar-Demirel