Home Studio | Sermin Kardestuncer
Sermin Kardestuncer‘s work has always included traces of her ancestors and her environment. The daughter of a Turkish tailor, she has often incorporated thread and stitching in her works on paper, cloth, even sheetrock, wood, metal, and concrete. During the 1990s, while living and working on a remote Greek island, she ran out of paint and discovered that the reddish earth around her worked equally well as pigment. This began a series using earth from the countries that she visited or lived in (Greece, Turkey, Italy). Her abstractions initially recall the work of minimalist artists of the 1960’s and ‘70’s, but upon closer inspection her integration of seductively worked materials produces nuanced compositions, and via the organic nature of her hand-work she creates her own vernacular.
“301 Balls (Diptych)” includes 301 small balls made of cotton thread unraveled from fabrics and studded with coal from Soma, Turkey, as an homage to the 301 miners who died there in 2014. Kardestuncer visited Soma on the one-year anniversary of this tragedy and after seeing the grieving families decided to make this work. “The ancient Greeks believed columns represented people…” and so “…each ball represents a person who died.”
Right:
“Live Life (Dedicated to Baba)”
2008–19
Socks, cotton filling, thread, a framed B&W photograph on fabric
18 x 24 x 2 inches
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“I wrote an homage to my father and his summer home in Ayvalik, Turkey after he died in 2015. The B&W photo used in this work, ‘Live Life,’ is taken in front of this home. ‘Hayati yasa,’ (‘Live life’ in Turkish) he said, when I rushed to visit him at his bedside a few months before he died and when he was loosing all cognitive abilities. Since then, I search for the hidden meaning or a message to ‘Live Life.’ By stitching the words on soft fabric that hangs from each side of the photograph like gentle gloves, I try to gain courage to live up to his wishes.“
Left:
“Big Knit (for Osman)”
2001–17
Nylon, cotton, wood, mud
Approximately 101 (H) x 38 (W) x 11 (D) inches
Left:
“301 Balls (Diptych)”
2017
Cotton thread, coal, fabric
37 x 37 x 1.5 inches each panel
(37 x 75.5 x 1.5 inches overall)
Right: Detail
“301 Balls (Diptych)”
2017
Cotton thread, coal, fabric
37 x 37 1.5 inches each panel
Left:
“Untitled (Diptych)”
2009
Earth from Siena, Italy on muslin washi with silk thread
25 x 20 x .5 inches each panel
(25 x 41.75 inches overall)
Left: Detail
“Untitled (Diptych)”
2009
Earth from Siena, Italy on muslin washi with silk thread
25 x 20 x .5 inches each panel
Above:
“Untitled (Triptych),” 2015, Cotton, earth, 14 x 12 inches each panel
Left and Below:
“Mask”
Cotton crochet on wood
Right:
“Untitled”
2009
Ink, earth, silk, paper, and thread
18 x 20 inches
Right:
“Untitled”
2014
Earth and thread on fabric
12.75 x 12.75 inches
Right:
“Untitled”
2014
Thread, earth on silk paper and cotton fabric
17 x 17 inches
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Sermin Kardestuncer was born in Gemlik, Turkey. She received a BFA from the University of Connecticut, Storrs and an MA from New York University. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions at institutions including The Bronx Museum of the Arts, MoMA/PS1, Art in General, Brooklyn Museum (all NYC), as well as the Davidson Visual Arts Center (NC). She has received awards from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and Anonymous Was A Woman and has participated in residencies at Ucross, Wyoming and The Rockefeller Foundation at Bellagio, Italy. She currently lives and works in New York City, and sometimes in Italy, Greece, and Turkey.