SELIN ÇINAR - {ARTIST TO WATCH}

Words : Hazal Uğurtan  / Images : Selin Çinar

Selin is a 27 years old young Turkish artist from a small city called “Eskişehir” and she is also a member of an artist collective called Krüw.

HU: You are both good at illustration and photography. Where does your talent and imagination come from? What is your inspiration?

SÇ: I’ve been drawing since I was a kid. There is no special story behind my interest of art but my dad is very talented so I guess I took that talent from him. I started to photograph when I was in high school and I was always curious and interested in it. But I haven’t worked on it for the last 1-2 years. I love listening to music and I think that is my biggest inspiration.

HU: Do you have any rituals while you are doing your works?

SÇ: I am not an organized person. I just start, and do whatever I want.

HU: You have a kind of nickname “Axstone”. What is that?

SÇ: Axstone is a stone name that I ran into when I was searching for a nickname that can also blast on Instagram. I met with this name by a suggestion from my friend. I’ve been using it for 2 years now.

HU: Turkey was a messed up country before, still messed up and it will stay like this for a long time most likely. How does this “jungle” effect your artistic world?

SÇ: Actually I don’t care that much. I was thinking about what’s going on too much and nothing changed. I’m not watching TV and you know about the “social media” so I’m not poking it. I’m ashamed of living in Turkey. Living with a futureless, angry human crowd tires me. I’m in the “going to move out of Turkey list”. These conditions effect our works of course. Employers are also in the same psychology.

HU: You are a member of an artist collective from Turkey called “Krüw“. Can you tell me about your group briefly and your relationship with them? 

SÇ: “Krüw” is a crew of 21 talented illustrators. I got involved in that with Uçman Balaban‘s exhibition offer which I jumped into. Our purpose was to show our works which we printed in serigraphy by our own hands with care. Our first move was “90z” named exhibition. We didn’t even think that it would go further. We just wanted to meet and hang out. “90z” exhibition was swarming with people and they loved it and wanted another one. It also quickly shared on social media so we got excited and started to think about second exhibition. Also with that excitement we made a logo, name and website. So now we will open our second exhibition called “Canavarz” (Monsterz). Crew’s works are also monstrous and my friends make me really proud (weeping for joy).

HU: What is your spirit animal? 

SÇ: My spirit animal is… Grizzly bear. Because they are like me. They are cool, careless; they scratch their backs to trees, roll around, don’t know which day they are in… I’m asking myself sometimes that why I can’t be that animal.

HU: What advice you have for younger artists? 

SÇ: “Imam hatipler kapatılsın.” (*Note, This is an ironic and funny motto against religious schools in Turkey that says “Religious schools must be closed.”)