The young and talented artist, Zeynep Solakoglu, lives and works in her apartment in Topağacı, where one would not expect such an artsy “inn” would exist. Her choice of bright colours both in her works and in her decoration taste gives one a feeling of being in a playground. Starting to draw and paint at a young age, Zeynep studied Visual Communication Design which was, according to her, amusing but she never actually got along very well with technology. She is one of those rare ones who still enjoys physical connection. Thus she went to New York to take drawing classes which she did not think was the right thing for her as one would have to start over and change his style from scratch with all the techniques they teach. Instead she enrolled in Mythology and Art History classes, thanks to which, the characters in her “stories” have shaped up majorly.
Zeynep Solakoglu mostly works with coloured pencils, markers and ink. Though she is trying new materials each and every day no matter where she finds them, whether in a fancy store in New York or in a local craft shop in Cappadocia.
She says all the actions in her paintings are developing rather organically than planned. Being very hesitant in the beginning she now learned “how to go with the flow”, making it up and creating something new from even coffee stains which eventually turns the work into something completely different.
Working home allows her to concentrate fully and devoting herself to the work the whole day, thus dry pencils are rather her thing as she admits not having the patience to wait for the paint to dry and continue days and days later as in the oil color works.
Having worked with some galleries for her solo shows, she is not yet a resident artist in any gallery, though we’ve learned that she is nowadays excited about an upcoming self organized group show, along with some artist friends of her.
We knew that painting and drawing would not be her only medium seeing all the materials in the studio plus all the spoken and unspoken you could feel the existence of. Thus she showed us her enchanting self published comic book, which will hopefully be followed by a new one in the near future.