People love denim, the reason why jeans, jackets, and other apparel made of this material is so popular and worn worldwide. However, the Turkish contemporary artist Deniz Sağdıç uses this one-of-a-kind material in ingenious and creative ways to create breathtaking artworks.
Deniz, born in Mersin, Turkey, was introduced to stitching from her early childhood since most of her relatives were tailors or designers. She began by sewing old denim trousers as women’s bags in her aunt’s garment workshop. This paved the way for her to pursue something creative in the future in this field. So, it wasn’t surprising when she enrolled in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Mersin University, Mersin, Turkey. So good was she that she graduated at the top of her class.
Even during her university years, Deniz set up a workshop to sell her paintings and teach design courses. However, her desire to become a real artist made her relocate to Istanbul, her country’s capital city, where she remains to date. She started with oil painting objects and hewing them as sculptures. However, once she tried her hand at a piece of denim she discovered in her wardrobe and created a portrait out of it, it opened infinite possibilities for her.
Deniz made her denim art a part of her Ready ReMade project that makes use of objects of daily use as works of art. For her, denim is a material that offers limitless technical possibilities. Says she on fashionunited.uk, “You can scratch the denim up like dressing a marble and can sculpt it into different shapes, without the fear of it being broken like a marble. You can transform it into 3D forms like a sculpture by stretching, bending, and folding…” For denim art, she not only uses the cloth of the denim apparel, but also its pockets, tags, buttons, and even zips!
Deniz’s stunning portraits of recycled denim fabric showcase beautiful design skill and creativity, so much so that the faces on large portraits with expressive eyes even highlight human emotions. Little wonder they attract people from far and wide. Her works have been displayed in many solo and group exhibitions.
Deniz Sağdıç
