Zeynep Perinçek: Explorer of New Creative Territories

Hello Zeynep and thank you for chatting with us today! Let's start with your beginnings...

I have always loved painting, tinkering, crafting and building. 

Even as a child, my family was attentive to my work. My mother had my paintings framed to hang in our home, she showed off them to her friends. My stepfather showed me books on painters he liked. Plus, I never ran out of materials! I think that encouragement and attention gave me a kind of quiet confidence.

After high school I did four years of industrial design. I really enjoyed these studies. I realized that I needed a form of freedom in creation, time for research and experimentation.

At the same time, I received two scholarships and spent two periods in Florence where I attended painting workshops. Then I met Claude, with whom I still live today. It was my desire to see the country and to study art that led to my arrival in France in 1992. I then attended the Art School of Avignon. 

Organic matter, plant life and minerals are honored in your approach. How do these two worlds nourish your creation?

I think it corresponds to an imaginary world. I have always lived in an urban environment and for me nature is a somewhat unknown world, to be discovered and observed. I am moved, surprised and even amazed.

Plants, animals, rocks and pebbles are also incredibly rich sources of patterns, materials and colors. In my work, they are often my starting points.

I like to be surprised by what is done in spite of myself, to be a spectator of my own work.

Most of the time, accepting not to control everything, to provoke accidents allows me to discover new realms of artistic play.

You mention chance and accident. When you start a new work, you don't know what it will look like when it is finished? 

Starting a new work is the continuity of all that I could do before. So I have intentions, an idea, a common thread. Today, in hindsight, I see the links from one series to another even if sometimes they can seem very formally different. 

I always try to make sure that these intentions don't prevent the possibility of a change of course, because often anything unexpected that can happen keeps me enthusiastic. I get bored with the execution of a project that is too specific and I don't want to be bored while working, I want to have fun! 

I like to be surprised by what happens in spite of myself, to be a spectator of my own work. Of course sometimes it doesn't work out, it doesn't bounce back, but accepting that I won't be able to control everything allows me to discover new things. 

The exploration of this new territory gives rise to a series, like variations around a new tool, a new gesture, a color, and my intentions become clearer.

Who are the artists, and in particular women artists, who have inspired you the most and still inspire you?

The first painters I looked at and loved were Matisse, Chagal, Gauguin and some German expressionists - colorful and contrasting paintings. I couldn't say if they still inspire me but I still see their traces in what I can do today. 

Once in art school, I discovered the work of Annette Messager which touched me by its freedom, diversity and profusion. I liked Tinguely's machines, Calder's circus. The graphic work of Roni Horn, certain works of Louise Bourgeois, American expressionism, notably the work of Joan Mitchell, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Gerhard Richter and Cy Twombly inspire me greatly.

There are also my artist friends, and for the time being they are rather women, with whom we shared moments of life and exchanged on our respective practices which had an influence on my work. I think for example of Pascale Lefebvre with whom I shared a workshop.

Do you consider that being a woman artist today is an opportunity or a hindrance? 

I have never asked myself this question. For me, this has been neither an opportunity nor a hindrance. It is a fact, I am a woman and I have built my life with this reality. I don't remember saying to myself one day: "It would have been much better if I were a man!