About Ziya’s art

I create artwork from paper in saturated color, so textural, you want to touch it. Abstractions of tree forms, flowers, rocks and the ocean, Nature serves as my constant muse. Old peeling walls and broken structures, fascinate me. 

Paper can be flat, or three dimensional, smooth, or roughly textured, ivory white or richly saturated with color and it can all be incorporated in one artwork. The timelessness and spirituality of Nature inspires my work. My background in woven textiles informs my paper practice, as I manipulate wet paper as though it were fabric.

To begin, I layer, meld, wet and dye recycled paper or freshly pulled handmade paper, to form shapes. I then scrape and tear the surface to create texture, adding intense color, and sculptural depth by combining the wet paper with pulp paint, encaustic, acrylic paint, matte medium and sometimes wax crayon.

My artwork challenges the viewer to consider the irony of my subject matter and chosen media, as the trees and natural forms I evoke, are displaced to make the paper medium itself. While my art references trees and other natural forms like water and fire, it is ultimately paper, in all its sumptuousness, pliability and aesthetic possibility that becomes my primary statement.