Nazlı Gürlek Hodder

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

I am invested in developing an embodied aesthetic that reflects the here and now of authentic life experiences in order to speak of freedoms, agency, resistance and empowerment. Through the artistic gestures of healing and resistance, I propose a return to a desiring, performing, creating body, that is in constant continuation and flow with the rest of life.

My works reveal performative acts of the body in various ritualistic situations carried out in nature or in the solitude of my studio with the intention of developing practices of freedom, agency, resilience and empowerment. My questions concern eco-feminism, oneness of the earth's body and the human body, and art as a tool for healing and resistance.

Today, the body is fragmented, devalued, and oppressed. It is in need of recuperation from the structures of power and domination that imprison it. Through the artistic gestures of healing and resistance, I aim to aid it in reassembling itself; in returning to a desiring, performing, creating body, that is in constant continuation and flow with the rest of life surrounding it.
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I combine earth-sourced materials such as volcanic stones, soil, copper and vegetable oils with painted or collaged paper and canvas surfaces bearing the traces of my physical movements, emotional states, sensations and mental monologues. Fluctuating between abstraction and figuration, the works are often activated by light, gaining a living corporeality and a mystical aura. The performance pieces, on the other hand, stem from a desire to explore such issues in ways they are experienced by other bodies, as much as from a desire for connection and reflexivity. 

Painting as trace of performative process forms the core of my practice. Through instinctively structured rituals I explore material, emotional and spiritual dimensions of the body together with themes such as birth, death, creation, alchemy, mythology, ecology, healing, resilience and the unconscious. I combine elements from Anatolian and Central Asian shamanic cultures with dance therapy techniques and archaic symbolisms. The resulting works bear witness to the potential of the body as an inconsistent and vulnerable artifact, with leaky boundaries in constant continuation and flow with the rest of life surrounding it.