Born in 1984, Baysan Yüksel graduated from Istanbul Bilgi University Department of Sociology in 2007 and Marmara University Department of Painting (M.F.A.) in 2010. Since 2006, she has been working at her own studio in Istanbul and participating to national and international exhibitions.
The artist who creates critical and interdisciplinary work around the concepts of routine, beliefs, traditions and consumer culture, uses dreams and universal symbols as signs for the collective subconscious. Within this context, she also refers to her oeuvre as storytelling. Painting, drawing, collage, three-dimensional objects, artist books, video, installation and text are her most preferred disciplines. She sees all kinds of surfaces, be it canvas, paper, wall or found objects, as instruments on which she can transfer all these stories that she collects both from within and without.
Her most recent works consist of paintings and three-dimensional assemblages where she often uses the symbol of the snake and the octopus as the reflections of individual and social confrontations, reminiscent of sequences from dark fairy tales. Here the snake symbolizes change, renovation and rebirth, whereas the octopus with its flexible anatomy and multiple limbs represents the tension and the anxiety triggered by unfamiliar and unstable emotions.
