Exploring art as healer and alchemy

Nazlı Gürlek Hodder's creative process is an instinctive and unconditioned path. Her urge to create is like a primitive instinct coming from her soul and her body. That's how her works reflect primitive and sentient drawings and installations. She reflects onto body and soul connection depicting how both the body and mind are a collaboration of sentiments, through creativity.

According to the artist, art and painting is a process of exploration and healing. It is not a representation nor news or a message. Because Gürlek's way of understating and creating art is a process through which what is inside is expressed and gains social relevance. It is the path, mark, memory, sign, and guide of real-life processes, said Gürlek.

She uses her works as a metaphysical question of being as becoming one as a whole with her body. That's how she manages to tell her journey through her solo show at the Istanbul art space of Evliyagil Dolapdere titled "In the Body." Somehow, she shows us how the body is part of our soul and how the soul is a part of the body and these are two inseparable concepts. This is a journey of finding oneself and discovering her realities.

This is a long journey, according to Gürlek. "The moment I realized things were not right for me in life in my mid-30s and decided to transform them was the moment I realized how separate I was from my own body. This means being disconnected from feelings, emotions, instincts too, all of which have a huge part in the healthy functioning of an individual."

Gürlek said this is not a story specific to her alone but a general problem common to the majority of the society. "This is a problem rooted in our very own social constructs and it dominates the lives of many of us," she added. What Gürlek...