Özge Bayda? Say?lgan

Girl with an apple – Mixed technique (papie mache, acrylic painting)

Once upon a time – Mixed technique (papie mache, acrylic painting)

Turkey

Girl with an apple. March, 2020.
” I’ve made it at the beginning of my quarantine at home… Girl with an apple is just in the middle of hope and despair, flying and falling down, between being light and being heavy. It’s not easy to say the central figure will be ok or not. But it’s obvious that she’s shocked and knows something is changing. That apple falling down on her head reminds the gravity and the reality of nature (Earth) and also the imaginary world of fairytales (In my culture fairytales are told with an ending which situtates the metaphore “apple” as a reward. Storyteller ends the story telling: “…Three apples have fallen down from the sky, one on the head of our hero, one on the head of the one who have narrated and the one on the head of the ones who have listened.” So this metaphore is also reminds of being between earthly and imaginary worlds for me.”

Once open a time. 2019.
“This one is older but it reflects my feelings now. In original work, the central figure is flying in a box. In a world devastated by unexpected winds and storms, she finds something to follow, a dark cloud… It’s better than nothing and she maybe will be out of the surrounding chaos. Once open a time, as a term, is also a beginning of a new fairytale and despite of the ambiguity of future, it’s sounds like a harbinger of new happy endings following many struggles. This is one of my classic style of expression nourished from fairytales’ imaginary universe, with uncanny situations and figures trying to escape from where they are and dreaming of new skies to fly, but still looking for someting to hold with an enormous afraid of an unexpected fall.”

Özge Bayda? Say?lgan in an Istanbul based visual artist, focusing on character design, puppet construction and stop-motion animation. She is also interested in experimental illustration and working with mixed technique. She participated in various exhibitions with illustrations including papier-mache characters on collage backgrounds. She is a member of Visual Communication Design Dept. of  Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, in Istanbul Medeniyet Unversity. She is also teaching and researching visual storytelling media from interactive books to digital games. 

For further information about the artist, check out: https://www.instagram.com/ozge_sayilgan/