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).