The photographic work of Turkish artist Elif Yeşil Aktamiş is like an electric temple, resembling Istanbul and the clash of cultures constituting the capital.
The creative force of the Turkish artist Elif Yeşil Aktamiş (b. 1978) is primarily formed by her family background and the encounter and collide of cultural differences. Aktamis is both Crimean and Anatolian and lives in Istanbul, which is a monumental capital city, a mixed cultural texture of 3 major empires which completes and feeds each other. A capital that has the human oil and moisture of hundreds of generations which passed through the city.
“As you slide in trough the electric stream of ancient roads, you become a part of it but at the same time you can't help feeling like you are worthless and tiny as a micro being in the electric inner soul of the greatest electric temple of all time, Istanbul.”
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Absorbing the cultural synthesis, disregarding religion, language or race, Aktamiş is aware of the fact that all humans feel and act the same to some extent, which is what fuels her fire to express herself the way she does and see the world the way she sees it.
Although Aktamiş is capable of working in all sorts of creative media, she never limits herself. She mostly focusses on art in the domain of multimedia, specifically digital collage, based on photography. Aktamiş likes to sense and convey the objects of the world in her own original way, in order to feel free and rejoice the same logic. The works of Aktamiş are mostly planned and well-thought-through. Whether her work is fictional or not, every object has secretly or evidently created details, stories and descriptions to be told. When her audience fails to ask, these details last esoteric forever. When choosing her subject, Aktamiş is guided by the experiences and memories she has lived, and the waves of emotions they created within her. In the creation of a good composition, the key to Aktamiş is originality. She believes she’s creating a universal language, by distilling her own experience in her compositions. |
Aktamiş and her creative process is inspired by the English painter and collage artist Richard Hamilton (1922-2011), the American street photographer Vivian Maier (1926-2009) and the American realist painter and printmaker Edward Hopper (1882-1967). Common to the three of them, Aktamiş noted that none of them shows off nor buzz ridiculously in populism but keeping it real. According to Aktamiş their creations were ahead of their time, with their unique understanding of humanity.
This article about Elif Yeşil Aktamiş takes part of the 6th anniversary magazine, ARTICULATE #25. Read, download or order your print version of the full publication below.
ARTICULATE 25 is the 6th anniversary publication of ARTICULATE, showcasing the work of 5 professional contemporary artists, featuring the Ukrainian Ruslan Onishchenko, the Turkish creative photographer Elif Yesil Aktamis, the Spanish graphic artist José Navarro, the Russian illustrator Anton Gudim and the American painter Dorielle Caimi, who’s priding the cover.
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