Sevgi Çağal spreads seeds of love with new exhibition

From turmoil to tulips

Listening to her intuition, Çağal began painting, using art as a means to deal with her parent’s repression. “I began painting when I was 3 years old. I was a very successful student at school, but I had a broad inner world,” says Çağal. “I painted without stopping. Painting is what saved me.” Now, meeting her audience during her exhibition at dem-art art gallery, Çağal says she has used her childhood experiences as inspiration for her delicate artwork. “I grew up during a period in the United States when there was a lot of drug use, when there were conflicts between black and white people and when there was the tension of Vietnam,” states Çağal when discussing what the US was like growing up. “But painting always saved me from these issues.” However, she faced many challenges when she decided to paint. “My family was also aware that I painted a lot, but my father, my beloved one, never wanted me to become an artist. He wanted me to work at the United Nations, but that was his dream, not mine.”

Nevertheless, Çağal gained the support of her family by working as a translator. “Families are fearful when they hear their children want to become artists,” says Çağal. “My parents always wanted to protect me from the external world in the US. They always feared that I would go to extremes, and that they would lose me.” But molds were not for Çağal, and her passion for art never died. “I could never fit into those patterns that were offered to me,” she says. Despite her struggle, Çağal seems to be content with how her life has turned out. “I am very lucky because I can express something, I can do something.”

Tulips for signature and signature for inspiration

Having opened 25 solo shows as well as having participated in more than 40 group exhibitions, Çağal has worked in her own workshop since 1998 after working with many prominent artists. “My main theme is fertility and woman,” notes Çağal, while showing the vivacious and mysterious tulips in her paintings. “Why tulips? Because they belong to Turkey. Besides, the tulip form has always attracted me because it is so feminine, and the woman is so important for nature considering there has always been the concept of a goddess in history.” In this sense, tulips are symbols in Çağal’s art. “A person who grows up in another country feels closer to his home country. Everybody knows that tulips belong to the Netherlands. No. Tulips belong to Turkey, and people should know this,” explains Çağal. “Tulips exist in Sufism, in miniature, in tezhip. It is a flower that coincides with our own identity.”

Çağal also uses her own name, which is the Turkish word for love, in her paintings. “I write love everywhere,” notes Çağal. “We lack so much tolerance and love. When I sign a painting, I want to shout this; that’s why I do it this way. I integrate tradition into my own art, and this is how my art evolves.”

“If you look at my first paintings, you will see some curves that are reminiscent of the human skin,” explains Çağal. “A human being is not separated from nature. S/he is a part of it. And in order to maintain this entity, we need love. But as we get farther from nature and focus on formalism, we lose this essence. Actually, this exists in Rumi’s philosophy as well. We are all bound to each other.”

The bronze sculptures of Çağal, despite the hard and cold material, seem warm and friendly. “In my sculptures, my main theme is also woman and love. The woman is the world, and the world is the woman. The golden balls symbolize love. And you can see the little tulips as my signature,” explains Çağal. “And there are no edges on my sculptures; they are very soft, pure and curvy. I believe that I can reflect that warmth in my work.”

“Love, mother and child, fertility,” these are what Çağal depicts in her sculptures. “My concerns are about human beings and the world,” she says. “If I only do work in order for people to like them, then I can’t question anything.”

Maintaining identity

After Çağal returned to Turkey in 1985, she witnessed many shifts in Turkish daily life. “We used to come to Turkey during the holidays every year since the 1960s, and I used to adore Turkey. There was no television, but there was family. But when I came back to live, it was difficult for me,” she explains. “The conditions were much harder, but at the same time items began being imported, and people were astonished. Turkey has changed a lot, and nowadays I miss the naivety of the people in the old days.” Raising her children, Çağal realizes how the mentality remains the same despite the changes in society. “The world is changing, but here the mentality is the same. When you look at appearances, they seem very civilized. But the mentality is so much the same, and identity is being lost. There’s adoration for foreigners. The first thing that we ask a foreigner who comes to Turkey is: Did you like the Turkish people? Only a person who does not have self-confidence asks this question.”

“We are now in a period of transition, and this has lasted a long time. But a good outcome of this process is in the hands of the youth and the artists. Every kind of art should be practiced. Some do gilding, some make sculptures. There can be nothing more naive and natural than expressing himself/herself.”

Despite all, Çağal is still positive and keeps her hopes up. “I am a visionary, and my paintings are my dreams,” she says. “I am hopeful that some day love will be understood, and people will get along regardless of race and religion. Indeed, how easy it is to be a human being, but how hard it is as well. When I say this, people tell me to return to reality. What is reality, is it materiality?”