Nazlı Gürlek Hodder

Totem
2020
Oil paint on unprimed canvas, lightbox
150 x 40 cm (framed)

​Turning four female breasts into a sacred object inspired by tribal cultures, the work celebrates the power of radical femininity and the life-giving powers of the female body. The breast-like figures remind us as well of planetary bodies, referring to the place the human body holds in creation myths. The piece is inspired by the traditional art of indigenous African and Papua New Guinean spiritual totem pole sculptures, presenting wood-carved figures of ancestors and ancestresses rising vertically on top of each other to protect the tribe. In a similar line of thought, "Totem" proposes to find the sacred and the protectiveness in the matrilineal line of descent.

Installation views from "Nazlı Gürlek Hodder: In The Body", Evliyagil Dolapdere, Istanbul, November 07, 2020 - January 31, 2021

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