Gizem Yücelen
Temporary Archive, 2026
Synthetic Fabrics, Clay 45x200cm
Gizem Yücelen
Where It Was, 2026
Wool, Felt, Synthetic Fibers, Clay 30x34cm
Gizem Yücelen
The Wound Diary III, 2026
Wool, Felt, Synthetic Fibers, Metal 35x28cm
Gizem Yücelen
Outpouring Sessions, 2023
Ribbon, Acrylic Paint, Resin 13x15x10cm
Gizem Yücelen
Wound Diary I-II, 2017-2022
Leather, Wool, Ribbon, Synthetic Fibers, Metal 45x35x10cm
Wounds, great storages of the memories, markers of the moments on our skins for a life time... I have this curiosity for those marks, but I've never had a significant one because I used to be a timid kid, limited by the fear of physical injuries. So I achieved to protect my skin from wounds. Yet I haven't been careful about getting the emotional ones. This work is my wound diary, dedicated to all my 'would have's, 'could have's, 'should have's and all my heartbreaks.
Gizem Yücelen
The Cycle of Residual Grief, 2025
Silk poplin, Embroidery Thread, Metal 45x45cm
I’ve been thinking about grief for a long time. How it’s experienced, how we’re taught to express it, and how long it should last…This work took shape in the wake of losing two women in my family—my grandmother and my aunt—within the last two years. I embroidered it slowly, while thinking on all the ways grief is held: aloud or in silence, with words or without. In the end, it was completed when my mother helped fill the empty space I had left. The embroidery I altered, multiplied, and re-stitched belongs to my grandmother. She had created curtains with it as a young woman in an evening crafts course. When she married, my grandfather told that one day they would build their own home. So she never hung the curtains in the house they lived in—instead, she folded them away in a chest, saving them for the future house. A fire later destroyed almost everything they owned. The next day, neighbors sifting through the remains found the curtains: scorched at the edges, but with pieces of embroideries still intact. They brought them to my grandmother. She kept those remnants for the rest of her life. One of the pieces passed on to my mother, and eventually to me, just as the way how we mourn. How is grief held? Is the loudest grief the deepest one? Does the way we mourn pass down through generations? I'm still questioning.
