‘Women of Lace- Giving Birth’
An Exhibition by Turkish Cypriot Artist:
Sezin Boğaç
On 7th of May 2010, Turkish Cypriot artist Sezin Boğaç opened her first solo-exhibition named “Women of Lace-Giving Birth” at İsmet Vehit Güney Art Center in Nicosia/ Cyprus. In order to tell the secret dreams, hopes and wishes of many women which has been told trough generations to generations via lace-work, the artist transformed these hand-works into spectacular sculptures. Sezin Boğaç opened her firs exhibition after having 5 years art training and practice at Pygmalion Sculpture Studio by Cyprus’s most famous and well known sculptor Baki Boğaç.
I have visited many exhibitions in famous art galleries and museums all over the Europe, yet I have not seen such an original work which combines the lace-work and plaster together…
The concept of the exhibition from the artist’s words:
Could the naive yet radical richness of the secular and moral values, delivered by woman be expressed by a word, color or melody? How, with what shall the love be described towards a new born life, the anxiety, longing, hopes and sadness lived, while the new born is growing? Hundreds of lives at the intersections, yet still whole, woman can carry it all… with thousands of beauties rising within…
Woman, is mother—since the birth of mankind, the source of the first soul… Woman is love. Love is fertile; because it is creative. Woman is creative, because she is love… And a new world can only be created with love. In short, I am willing to tell the adventure of expression of internal world of the woman who is the dreamer, creator, deliverer, shaper, and lives through the pain of creating in all aspects.
For years, I tried to express these dreams, beauties, happiness and sadness with the laceworks I made. Just like the carpet whose story goes back for hundreds of years… Weaving a carpet is an internal scream; the worries being weaved on the love loom. In the motives of carpet there are the spiritual stories telling about expressions of love, wounds of desire, dance of the feelings, sophisticated touch, and lackluster eyes. Different patterns on the motives reflect the deeps of the woman’s spirit, existence value, joys of the past and the present moment. Lacework, just like the carpet, hosts the worlds with different feelings in each of its motive. A lot is hidden in the motives of the lace, which are the reflections of the inner movement. Some have a secret lustful feeling, some have excitement, may be love or desire, even sadness, longing, dreams and anxiety. For the long years, I worked on putting in the transformation of the long lasting dream to a scream of the woman opposing the known, ordinary set to her, into my laceworks. However the world of the woman is so huge that, I decided to chose an abstract way of expression in order to be able to tell about her boundless richness. With the laces standing at the intervals of the abstract forms, I tried to tell the story of expressing ‘all feelings stifled in the woman.’
Hereby, woman’s dreams found a place first on the intervals of the laceworks, then on the intervals of the sculpture. Specifically personal, generally all women’s mutual joy, happiness, anxiety, their attitude of living life as if making a lace, and being a mother… A lot came out to be told…
My dearest woman friends run to my rescue and brought me their used, stale, laceworks, yet hiding numerous stories in their motives, as my laceworks could not keep up with my working speed. Each lacework brought to me held a different story, a different meaning. After the laces set the communication with me, the told stories turned into the richness of my art. And their laces transforming into sculptures, gave them excitement, too. Thus, their and my common journey carried on.
At the moment, the told story of the 38 pieces, is the common story of mine, my friends, and yours… Everyone of us has a story told in this exhibition. You see, the stories of ours, the lace women’s, will as long as the world keeps on turning.
Sezin Boğaç
Translation to English by: Maria Ayça Ateş
Photos of the art work exhibited
Photos from the Exhibition
About Sezin Boğaç
1951. Born in Nicosia, Cyprus.
1977. Graduated from İstanbul University, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Had chance to got Artistic Background by strolling around several exhibitions during her university education in İstanbul; and then in Cyprus).
1979-1989. Served in Gazimağusa State Hospital.
1989. Opened ‘Sezin Pharmacy’ in Gazimağusa and has been still worked as pharmacist.
1996. Had joined to Gazimağusa Municipality Turkish Art Music Choir; has attended various concerts (1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002).
2005 . Has got Art training and practice at Pygmalion Sculpture Studio by Baki Boğaç.
2006. She is one of the founders of Cyprus Art Association Turkish Art Music Choir and has still served in the choir.
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