While visiting the home of the late textile artist Nasra Simmeshindi, acclaimed Turkish artist Kutlug Ataman noticed a strip of her ceiling painted azure blue. Simmeshindi told Ataman that the silsel, or “fluttering of wings” in the Aramaic dialect of southeast Turkey, served as a substitute sky when she could not wander outside. The motif became the basis for Ataman’s 2012 tapestry “Silsel.”
Now Simmeshindi’s own work is on display in “I-You-They: A Century of Artist Women” at Istanbul’s Mesher gallery through May 29, an expansive exhibition that seeks to amend the record on who paved the way for Turkish contemporary artists. Curated by Deniz Artun, the show features 117 artists who lived and worked in Turkey between 1850 and 1950, many of them ignored by art historians until now.
