“In my head…
What if I don’t have to make a choice between art and fashion?
After my second fashion show inspired by Antoni Gaudi, one of the magazines wrote that I was inspired by Salvador Dali rather than Gaudi by mistake. Usually I’m very careful by the signs occur in my life but this one has been very sudden.
I needed a small space, small and by the sea. I put all the paintings of Dali into a sailboat and I watched them everyday for days.
To be only inspired from Dali.
And Dali feeding my soul… It seemed like a road not going too far.
And suddenly I came up with an idea. ‘’What do I love about Turkish culture?’’ The women of Levni…
Miniature…
Ottoman Miniature…
Iranian Miniature…
And all the connections, similarities between them.
All the Ottoman art had to be two-dimensional. The third dimension was ‘The God’.
Depth of Dali and all the surrealist objects seemed to be three-dimensional.
However, they don’t reflect the reality. Two dimension of miniature don’t reflect the reality either. So they both can be considered as surreal in a way.
I visualized a picture in my mind. Dali wearing a ‘Fes’ (Ottoman cap) on his head, sitting at Topkapi Palace by his artwork ready for a painting.‘’How interesting it would be if this would be a movie scene?’’ I thought.
What would Dali paint?
He had to paint a miniature for sure.
But he would impose his long leg elephants upon the miniature.
And then he would paint Hodja Nasrettin, a very important figure.
Maybe he would have Hodja sitting on the elephant instead of donkey.
Maybe he would put his melting clocks over the elephant and he would paint the face of Nasrettin Hodja like his own face. We all know he was a little narcist about himself.
Or maybe he would paint a Turkish bath scene. He would just hang all the melting clocks over the ropes of the Turkish bath. Or if he didn’t live during the Ottoman period but he would just be inspired after his trip to Istanbul?
Would he use his famous sticks as the sticks of iron swing and place one of the Levni women on that swing?
My mind was full of these thoughts and I started searching for people who would paint these.
I met all of them one by one.
When I went to workshop of Mister Arya Kamali, who was the first person suggested to me, at Kizlaragasi Han in Izmir (ancient Ottoman building) the first thing he said was;
‘’Before you arrived, your energy was here. They call me ‘The Dali of Miniatures’. WELCOME!’’
