Who is Dilşad Atasoy (1962- Istanbul)
A graduate of Ankara University Faculty of Language, History and Geography, painter Dilşad Atasoy has been painting professionally for 35 years. She has participated in many exhibitions in many countries, including Turkey, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Portugal and Spain. Having opened 12 solo exhibitions, Atasoy aimed to contribute to social transformation with her brush and colors with her exhibitions titled Roots, Secret, Fairytale Lands, Dream and Oxymoron-Fake Reality in Turkey. She represented Turkey at the Italy Fabriano Watercolor Festival in 2015 and her picture was included in the Fabriano International Catalogue. The artist, who is one of the producers of the White Canvas Art program, has brought many important art projects to life to date. She is one of the founders of the Istanbul Watercolor Community Association and currently serves as the association president.
Art Perspective
I have always realized the exhibitions I have held so far within the framework of a concept. For a while, I exhibited the lands I dreamed of with the "Fairytale Lands" series. In these paintings, I created galleons, fabrics wrapped around their masts, flying, birds, imaginary spaces where the sky and waves mingle.
For a while, I dreamed of looking at the earth from the air, and the Geo series emerged. I questioned the contrast between green areas, the sea, boats, rivers and lakes, and concrete areas that emerged with the destruction of nature.
In the period that followed, I started to think about life and our roots. "Roots" were just an image here, I said, we should try to understand not only what is visible but what is beneath the visible, starting from the roots. The soil we step on, connect to, and sometimes think is a hindrance, the language we speak, forget, and find solace in, the spirit we feed on, were all our roots. These were deeply embedded in all our values, I opened my Roots exhibition with the message, “Let's embrace our roots, without shame or disregard, and let's all meet where our roots meet, in being human.”
In the following period, a new process of questioning began. And that questioning gave birth to a new series of paintings; "The Secret." In a universe full of secrets, we also live with our secrets. We carry deeper emotions, pains, joys, and happiness inside us than what is visible. Starting from this point, I started to think about the secrets of both humans and the universe. "Secrets do not need to be judged or interpreted, but rather to be understood and assimilated. They are captives, they want to come out of us, become visible, and become free," I said, and thus the secret exhibition emerged. I revealed my works during the pandemic period with an exhibition called "Düşümce"
In addition to the pains experienced during that period, I felt the desire to dream deepen inside me. The longing for the good and the beautiful was increasing. It was not possible to join nature for a while longer, but could thinking, feeling, and dreaming be prevented?
The loves and beauties that were experienced and will be experienced, whose magic shines in our minds like flowers, suddenly became the colors, forms, spots, and traces in my paintings. I imagined that I had created a colorful and imaginary world in the darkness. My last exhibition was completed with intensive work, we were together with my writer friend Oya Doğan at this exhibition. Oya Doğan wrote texts on my paintings, a joint work emerged. This exhibition called "Fake Reality Oxymoron" opened in Istanbul on October 21, 2023. Questions, interrogations. The subjects I think about, my effort to understand people and myself continues of course. I am also changing, and so are the events that affect me... These days, nature, trees, cycles and the destruction of nature affect me a lot. Now I have new questions, new thoughts, new narratives in my mind. I am trying to express my thoughts using an abstract language with colors and spots.
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