Yellow-Black

As an artist, I often identify myself as a painter, largely due to my distinctive "yellow-black" paintings. These works, created with a blend of charcoal and a unique yellow transparent paint — a formula derived from boiling various plants, passed down from my mother — span a range of sizes, from 30×50 cm to 300×300 cm. Regardless of whether I'm working digitally or with colored paint, I inevitably find myself returning to the "yellow-black" style, a touchstone for my artistic journey.

Upon reflecting on the reasons behind my deep connection to these paintings, I realized that they primarily link me to my family, to my siblings' black and white drawings that I admired as a child. The style also evokes memories of the comics that filled my childhood, my mother's onion dye, and the engravings found in old books. Most significantly, perhaps, it connects me to the enigmatic Mohammed Siyah Kalem, whose works I stumbled upon in a bookseller's market during my primary school years. As I flipped through the album, I was struck by the similarities to my own work and felt a profound sense of awe.

The "yellow-black" paintings have led me on a journey through my genetic heritage, exploring the sounds, shapes, and stories that resonate with me — from Shamanism to Islam, from Animism to Buddhism.

Throughout my artistic career, people have consistently requested these works. I continue to make them not out of obligation, but because I am genuinely compelled to do so. This constant process of death and rebirth — killing the old self and being reborn anew — is where the symbolic power of the yellow truly reveals itself.