Born in 79 in an Aegean city Smyrna (today’s Izmir) and grew up by the Mediterranean sea, spent 6 years in US to get a PhD in economics, and finally found myself in Adelaide teaching economics in the Uni of Adelaide. All through my teenage years, I was drawn to all sorts of creative activities: writing stories and poems, acting in school dramas, clothing designs, and sketches. During my 20s, my only creative outlet was a pencil and a regular A4 paper, to answer the calling of my right brain during all those long hours of left-brain centered economics lectures I had to take in my Phd. Most of the articles I was reading have my figure sketches on them.
However, my true enchantment by the ability to express myself through art started when I bought my first set of charcoals and soft pastels, thanks to my dear friend Sevgul, who herself is a professional artist in Belgium. When she saw my sketches first time, she wholeheartedly encouraged me to embrace art and improve my skills. Unfortunately, not until this year, I found enough free time to walk that path.
In the past, once I tried oil painting for a few weeks and my verdict was that painting with brushes was not for me, that I was most comfortable using my fingers, charcoals and pastels. However, at the beginning of 2011, I wanted to give a second chance to brushes and try the set of acrylics that I received as a birthday gift. When I decided to give a chance to acrylics, it is as if they gave me a chance to discover myself all over again. It felt like that a magical portal opened to forgotten past life memories of painting and I found myself painting with acrylics as if I always used them all my life. Thanks to Outsiders Festival, I will get my first opportunity to share them with art lovers.
I have no formal art training, not much technical knowledge, but when I am in front of a canvas with a brush in my hand, with no fear of making mistakes, I get into a transcendental state and the painting creates itself on the canvas using my hands as a medium. I feel like it is not me who creates a painting, but a painting who wants to be born into our world uses me as a tool to be manifested onto canvas. I just ask the colors to talk to me, I ask them to tell me how they want to appear on the canvas, and then starts my dance of painting in the manner of a whirling dervish .
When I am painting, I rarely use my brain, everything comes into existence through my intuition, as a reflection of the nameless parts of my soul. I may never become an established, professional artist, but I truly love each and every art piece I create, because they are manifestations of my very own soul. The way I love my paintings must be the same way the universe loves its creatures. I truly feel grateful that I have this gift since as long as I can draw and paint, I can never be lonely. You can see my paintings and sketches here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150121840736458.324673.571376457&l=ecd54cfbe9&type=1
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150229230256458.367041.571376457&l=fb1ee6115e&type=1
I want to end this bio with what Sevgul (http://www.evilstrawberry.com/) has written about me:
Duygu Yengin is a painter, but also a fantastic storyteller. In each one of her paintings, she tells us stories of women; goddesses, priestesses, and other fantastic female characters that find life in Duygu's brushstrokes and unusual palette. Taking elements from both the ethereal world and our physical world she recreates her own universe and puts her characters at play, for us to watch and ponder how much of these powerful women we see everyday around us, in our own reality.
