Betül SefikaAbout

Betül Sefika is a poet, illustrator and visual artist based in Brussels. 

Her writings try to draw the formal attributes of their media into their content. Her visual work revolves mainly around materialising absence.

The requirements of a language that wants to refer to absence, without filling it’s void and becoming the subject, make that her figurative imagery is often of an intimate, airy, fragmented, deconstructed and/or small scaled quality.
 Naken,
Research (+small exhibition), @Het Bos

2023

Two week research residency (both material and content wise) + small expo on the illusions of nudity & transparency.
 
Naking (naken in Dutch), as close as it might seem to get to it’s past participle, is never naked. In this mode the verb leaves who- or whatever conjugates it without a terminus and seemingly without intimacy.

From a similar incentive the research grows to ‘transparency’—an attribute that is not a liar, but a trickster.
Although transparent things suggest openness and access, the adjective is usually applied to the exact thing keeping you from what it shows. In addition, this see-through quality is only there, as long as the brightness of the posterior image lasts. Once it turns dark you end up looking at yourself.

These deceitful poetics apply to windows, digital screens as well ass reflective surfaces in city scapes.

The material study was done in glass, mirrors, spot lights, sun movement and skin coloured fabrics. Imagery involved screens, embraces, wetness and flowers (for the view), spirals (for the road).



Selection of bas-reliëfs




A lighter licking edges risks illumination

2022
      Poems on invisibilty and inaccessabilty.
      Accompanied by a lap sized choreography with objects in clay, veneer, crystal, thermal paper and matches.
      Performed in the botanical garden of Haren, during Dichters in the Prinsentuin.


    The lllllllong breath

    Forever-ever
      A forever growing body of images. This living catalogue is a tool for other projects. 



    Vanishing Acts

    2024

    Short story prompt about a city where air has turned solid.
    Performance + installation


    Post Mortem 

    2022
    Illustrations for the Post Mortem edition of rekto:verso 
    (Scans made by Ine Meganck, r:v’s in-house designer)



    Wijs de Weg Weg


    Wijs de weg weg is a quest for a story from an existing archive of personal sketches. Because this collection consists mostly of rough drawings and studies, a lot of images depict the same idea in different ways. Sometimes that difference is very slight. Having this catalogue creates the possibility of saying the exact same thing with many different images.

    The result is a fixed plot, a fixed form (hand drawn leporello publications) with fixed pages and different drawings in every version of the publication. The catalogue providing it’s imagery is ever-growing.



    Tea Time One Two

    2024
    Knick knack of stolen tea rituals with no integrity fot heritage whatsoever