Yasemin Nur Elkalir

In Istanbul, I packed my luggage. Just the morning of the day -13th of December – that I will leave my city to Blanca Murcia Spain.

Instinctively, I grabbed a bunch of white A4 papers and my pencil case.

I took one book with that was standing by itself unread for some time.

I got it from a bookshop in the airport in Berlin. ‘The Overstory” by Richard Powers.

It has Berlin-Istanbul flight card in it.

…instructions posted from the past, memories to become predictions.

28th of May 2019, interesting. The date of open studio here in Centro Negra is 28th of December.

We were talking with Maria, I heard she said: ‘everything will be tied.” I understood. Yes, they will be at the end. Knots, spiritual ones.

Way down in the understory.

For such a long time I did not watch them dry too closely. So intensely.

Them papers-small A4 paper parts, inside the plates with the water of a plant that I boil every night in my room behind the other door.

Plants that I collect in between two doors.

I am running to the other door the studio early in the morning before they get stuck on the plate.

I felt my knots in here: by heart, earthly knots.

I don’t know how to open-release them.

But I have seen them, that is something after all.

From one to the other.

Life will not answer the reason. And meaning is too young a thing to have much power over it.

I saw Alba at the hill across while I was sitting in front of the door to the studio and reading. She looked marvelous. I waved at her she didn’t see me.

I followed her down the hill with my eyes.

The stories in the book are all about trees. As if the book is written before I read it every day – just before my eyes.

She can only laugh. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand. It’s the Alhambra.”

Italic sentences are taken from the book.

Yasemin Nur was born 1976 in Istanbul. In 1998, she received her bachelor degree from Marmara University Fine Arts, Painting Department. In the same year, she started to study a MFA Master of Fine Arts in Mimar Sinan University Painting Program, which she finished in 2001. As part of her Master Nur participated in the MFA program from Pratt Institute Brooklyn, New York. 

 In 2001, she started her academic work at the same university in Painting Department, Tapestry Studio. In 2002, she finished her thesis in Pratt Institute NY and, in 2006 she finished a Doctorate in Fine Arts program in Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. From 2006-2013 she worked as a member of AtılKunst artist group. She has been collaborating with director Emre Koyuncuoğlu since 2013 in theatre and performances. In 2014, she started to take lessons of Kat’ı (Ottoman Art of Cutting Paper) from Emel Nurhan Ogan. Since 2016 she works in the university in the Painting Department, Printmaking Studio. Her productions are based on her collections of different materials and practices. She developed a long term relation with various materials and forms exploring the limits of personal persistence.