Bahadır Yıldız

Y. Bahadır Yıldız establishes an organic connection with home and works on the memory of space in his artworks where he processes local cultural images through autobiographical traces, using materials such as onion skin, henna, hibiscus, wallpaper, and old household items. Emotional patterns, power, the institution of family, identity, and belonging are among the topics he focuses on. For the past 10 years, the industrial phase of his works produced around the axis of nature-city dichotomy focuses on humans and the city as their habitat. The waste raw materials he uses in his works transform into anthropomorphic, hybrid figures through runoff and melting. These works, which he carries out by taking advantage of a gap in mass production within factory production areas, also possess a performative production process. In his studies on the similarities between human neurons and nature, he uses natural residues, root dyes, and similar materials. In his experiments with the possibilities of sandpaper since 2007, he establishes a unity of form and content through the function of the abrasive product. Through a regular wrapping action, spiral forms that grow and move starting from an initial point attempt to symbolically identify with the structure that an individual's defense mechanisms weave and build as a shell.

(b. 1976, Eskişehir) After leaving his studies at Ege University Printing and Baku State University Political Sciences unfinished, he graduated from Akdeniz University Sculpture Department in 2003. Within his education dominated by the Russian school, he took drawing lessons from Mir Celil Seyidov, and sculpture education from Moussaddık Nabıyev and Samdağa Cafarov. The artist, who won the achievement award at the 26th Contemporary Artists Exhibition, held his first solo exhibition at Galeri Apel 5/2 in 2008 with items belonging to that space and materials through which he could form an organic bond with home. He has held a total of 9 solo exhibitions, including 'Pressed and Dried' and 'Timeless Abrasions'. Among the numerous international exhibitions where his works were shown are Contemporary Book Art from Turkey (Hamburg), European Contemporary Art Fair (Strasbourg), Itinerant Tehran Biennial (Berlin, Belgrade, Istanbul), and What is the point (London). Having exhibited an installation curated by Ines Valle for the exhibition titled 'God Factor' at the Monastery of São Martinho de Tibães in Braga, Portugal, the artist lives and continues his work in Yalova.