AS: I think I always aimed to be a physical, traditional practitioner. I do have a background in traditional painting, and it was always my ideal approach to work with physical materials. Most of my inspiration was rooted in 20th-century and post-war Abstract Expressionist works. However, I ended up changing my medium for a couple of reasons. First, it was a matter of circumstance. When I finished university, I didn't have a proper space to continue working physically. I used to work on larger scales, with canvases and a lot of experimentation with color, which was something I was unable to do at home. At the same time, I started working in Web3, where I encountered new artists working in this space and became aware of the unlimited potential of digital media. This encouraged me to begin working digitally, and over time it has become an inseparable part of my practice.

AS: I think the way I understand the philosophy of distortion is quite similar to how artists like Miró translated it in their work. The whole philosophy of naïve art is particularly fascinating to me. It relates to the way an uneducated child or prehistoric human might create. You can never fully understand why they placed a round eye on the belly of a figure, and even if you ask, there is never a definitive answer. I am fascinated by that artistic uncertainty, and by the idea that you can filter what you see around you and transform it into something that, as a unique individual, only you can translate and express.

AS: I think that before we are assigned any labels of identity, we are essentially a mutable organism composed of different layers of tissue that are stacked and intertwined. Even when we are shaped by environmental forces and cognitive or social structures, the body continues to transform in a non-linear, almost rhizomatic way, constantly connecting to and redefining itself through its surroundings. From my perspective, the body is always in a process of reconstruction. It is never fixed. I often think of it as something that can collapse and reassemble itself, much like a mother during childbirth, fragmenting and then reconstituting into a new state of being. Modernity, politics, the machinic world, and global digitalization all exert a similar force on it. For me, the body is a site of inscription, a surface where transformation is recorded, even when those changes are not immediately visible.

AS: My practice has never been focused on the demonstration of sentimental aspects of the human body. None of my works aim to evoke feelings such as sadness or tragedy. For me, it is more of a materialistic matter, not a crisis. I approach the body as something like a coded page,you never know where the white or black dots will appear. The pattern is entirely coincidental. I am more inclined to work purely on the visual aspects of the body, its flexibility, and the paradoxical relationship it has with the modern world.

AS: The reason I refer to “dissection” as a way of framing my artistic approach is primarily rooted in my visual interests. I am drawn to depicting the body in the most direct yet simultaneously exaggerated manner possible. I am particularly fascinated by the texture and complexity of the body, its organs, skin and flesh. I am also interested in how the viewer encounters the work. I want the audience, when looking at my pieces, to feel as though they are coming face to face with something that resembles their own body. I aim for this encounter to exist in a space that is both pleasurable and unsettling at the same time.

AS: My process when working on physical pieces is not a gradual formation but rather a continuous cycle of construction and deconstruction. I usually begin with charcoal followed by a thin layer of oil as a kind of glazing base. From there I keep building up thicker layers of oil paint until I arrive at what feels like an ideal composition. The body often emerges quite naturally through this process. I don’t work with fixed plans and I generally avoid sketching beforehand. Instead my practice is largely driven by the element of “accident.” I keep experimenting with different materials and improvised techniques until I reach a point where I feel there is nothing more I can meaningfully add or change, almost like arriving at a constraint or limit within the work. My digital process follows a similar logic although it tends to come together much more quickly.

AS: I am still in the process of researching ways to work with silicone in more permanent and reliable forms, as I want my works to be long-lasting. This requires a lot of experimentation. The reason I am interested in using silicone in my practice is that it gives me the potential to recreate the human body in a much more tangible way. I am interested in conveying the sensation of skin, flesh, and layered bodily structures, and I believe silicone could be an ideal medium for exploring and developing these qualities in my work.

AS: I think the main reason is that abstraction is the most ideal way for me to express what I am really looking for when I depict “plasticity” and the element of change in the body. If I were to work as a realist painter, I would not be able to access the same possibilities that abstraction offers. It feels more limitless, and it allows me to work in a more intuitive way.

Beyond that, I also see abstraction as a way to protect my practice from becoming narrative or storytelling-driven. Most importantly, it helps me maintain a materialistic approach, which is an essential part of my practices.

AS: In my view, technology and digital media have become an inseparable part of twenty-first-century human life. I am interested in tracing the ways they directly and indirectly influence the human body through lived experience. In this sense, technology plays an essential role in the continuous transformation of the body. For this reason, I use digital tools and their inherent characteristics such as pixels, glitches, and algorithmic processes to make this influence more tangible and perceptible within the work. Just as glitches function as moments of distortion within digital systems, I see the human body in the twenty-first century as something closer to software, constantly shaped, modified, and reconfigured by technological forces.

AS: Definitely! I assume that the painterly act is always the same; it is grounded in the same philosophies and principles, regardless of medium. However, the materials we work with, as well as one’s personal and unique artistic discipline, can be infinite.

In this sense, I see pixels as the contemporary equivalent of brushstrokes, carrying the potential to spark a new kind of Renaissance in the twenty-first century.

AS: Considering the fact that the texture of real bodily organs is highly detailed and high in contrast, I find that in order to avoid a purely realistic approach, I need to find ways of representing the body through layered, collage-like compositions. However, for me, tending toward a more chaotic visual language was never a predetermined choice; rather, it emerged in a more intuitive and organic way. At the same time, studying the work of artists such as Willem de Kooning has also deepened my interest in expressionism and reinforced this approach.

AS: What I really try to pursue in my body of work is something close to pure abstraction, approached with a very painterly and free sensibility, while at the same time allowing myself to move beyond it and experiment with different materials and visual languages.

The foundation of my practice has always been rooted in traditional painting. However, I have also been deeply influenced by stop-motion animation and the visual aesthetics of early 2000s video games. Working within Web3 made me realize that I can bring these references together and transform them into something very personal.

I also feel that there are still many possibilities within digital media that I have yet to explore and learn from, and this ongoing discovery continues to shape my practice.

AS: Transformation, to me, is something that happens within our day-to-day lives, in every second and with each breath we take. Although my perspective on this process has never been critical, I believe that we often change in a somewhat regressive way. The placement of my figures in simple, intimate environments, surrounded by familiar, everyday objects, can be understood as a reference to the vulnerability of human beings and their cognitive systems in relation to the complexity of their surroundings. The environment around them transforms rapidly, yet this transformation does not necessarily correspond to the transformation of their bodies. As a result, even within very familiar settings, there is often a sense of estrangement. At the same time, I cannot fully explain why these objects appear in my works; perhaps it is simply because I have been surrounded by them for a long time.

AS: In my recent works, I have tried to let stories emerge more naturally within the pieces. I think at this stage of my practice, I feel a stronger need to engage with narrative than I did before.However, the stories in my work are not linear processes; rather, they are narratives of a moment. They are closer to fragments of lived experience, for example, the feeling of desperation or helplessness that can manifest itself in something as simple as plates falling from a cabinet. In this sense, as we change internally, our surroundings begin to reflect that transformation as well.

AS: My work is mostly shaped by the paradoxical emotions I experience in everyday life and the way they are reflected in my body. I often imagine events transforming into something like ash or electricity that settles on the body, continuously altering it from moment to moment. I am interested in how we process each experience internally, and how every event becomes part of a complex accumulation of layers within us, while time keeps passing and new experiences constantly unfold. Within this ongoing flow, I think human beings often encounter a deep sense of loneliness.

AS: The contemporary body, in a way, becomes obliged to process everything that happens to it. From my perspective, what truly causes the body to collapse is the contradiction between the things it is instinctively and naturally designed to store and process, and those that are imposed upon it by the modern world. This turns the process of collapse into something mechanized. Throughout this process, the body continues to follow its natural course, yet the mechanization that exists alongside it causes it to disintegrate. In a loop-like manner, it repeatedly reconnects and falls apart again, like pieces of flesh that are continuously stitched together only to break apart once more.

AS: As I mentioned in my proposal, I felt that in my upcoming project, which engages with the concept of plasticity, I needed a medium that could do more than simply capture the moment of "becoming." Alongside materials capable of recording that specific moment, I wanted to use digital tools to convey the continuity and fluidity of the process of becoming itself.

Beyond all of this, I think that what I am truly seeking in the sense of body expression is more effectively communicated through animation and GIFs or, more precisely, through movement. Perhaps in the same way that contemporary dance or Marina Abramović's performances are able to do so.

AS: From my perspective, my engagement with art and my personal expression, across the different fields I work in, still retains a somewhat painterly approach. What elevates painting, in my view, is an entirely instinctive and free relationship with the image, as well as the ability to endlessly reconsider form and free oneself from restrictive teachings that reduce the world around us to fixed and simplified categories.

I continually try to reclaim this capacity within my own practice. At the same time, I also like to let my work go once it has been created, and become an observer of the independent path it is capable of taking. In this way, I can, in my own manner, evade titles and labels, and simply create as an artist.