Artist Statement

Ancient Anatolian societies likened the world to a woman who gives birth, nurtures, protects and heals. Matriarchal societies that managed to live in perfect harmony with nature, blessed women and believed in goddesses. Over millennia, humankind lost the umbilical cord connecting it to the world and continuously took and consumed. Because of its gradually increasing selfishness, humankind became estranged, a stranger even to its own mother.
The Knitted Statues of Anatolian Goddesses Series is an artwork dedicated to respect for women and nature. Voluminous Goddess statues, made by the knitting of materials such as wool, linen and wire, foster a desire to touch the soft texture of the textile. The natural quality of the material also creates a harmony between the subject and the medium. The fibers can protect their form since they are knitted with copper and silver wires. This way, there is no need to fill the inside of the figures. Despite their soft and compassionate appearance, they are strong enough to stand on their own. The monochrome colors of the works bring forward the volume and the movement of the figures. The hair gives the feeling of motion and flowing to the figures, saving them from inertia. The bodies of the goddesses are plump enough to give a point to female sexuality without exaggerating it. Figures are knitted circularly as one single piece. With special techniques, the volume of the limbs extends or narrows. The additional pieces woven with linen thread and silver wires, such as snakes, babies and thrones are later combined with the main body by sewing.
I am trying to form an umbilical cord between myself and the world, and bless the goddesses by shaping the fiber. I am turning linen, wool, copper and all the meanings these materials carry along with them through the millennia to goddess statues by knitting them. Touching the same materials the people of centuries ago living in the same land as me, and shaping the material with the techniques they used, render time and place abstract. The softness and warmth of the textile and the flexibility of the knitting structure give different characters to each woman shaped in my hands.
Each goddess has a different story. One dominates the seas, the other animals. They rule love and the cities, too. All fertile, all exuberant. They are the goddesses that create gods. My little goddesses. They’re whispering in to our ears: if we can remember the nature inside us, we can again become the parts of a whole and be rescued from loneliness.