Yaşam Şaşmazer İstanbul, Turkey, b. 1980

Yaşam Şaşmazer completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Department of Sculpture. Heavily invested in the conflicts arising between “I” and “the other” during the early periods of her artistic career, Şaşmazer’s recent works continue to explore these polarities in the light of the reciprocal relationships that are shaped between human beings, non-human entities and nature. The artist’s works comprise sculptures and installations that are predominantly produced with natural materials such as wood, clay, paper and papier-mâché, including also organic and found materials as mushrooms, seaweeds, lichens, earth, rocks, tree branches and roots. Şaşmazer’s figurative sculptures focus on the human body. While some of them feature recognizable faces and bodily forms, others depict anonymous, amorphous and at times amputated human bodies or body parts. These body parts which undertake both human and non-human characteristics underscore the ambiguity and permeability of boundaries through the use of organic materials. Şaşmazer’s works are fueled with ephemeral processes that are subjected to time. Through bodies that enmesh and transform, the artist incorporates elemental dualities (human/non-human, animate/inanimate, organic/inorganic) in her work all the while reflecting on notions such as existence/absence and vitality/mortality through spiritual and physical transformations, creating narratives that renegotiate the central position humans cast themselves in. 

Şaşmazer’s solo exhibitions are either / or (Zilberman Istanbul, 2021), Metanoia (Havremagasinet, Boden, 2017; Torrance Art Museum, California, 2016), Dark Matter (curated by Sigrid Diewald, Kunstverein Ingolstadt, 2017). Her works have also been exhibited at the following group exhibitions; Suppose You Are Not, a selection from the Ömer Koç Collection (curated by Selen Ansen, Arter, Istanbul, 2024), Cappadox (Nevşehir, 2024), Everything will be just like now – just a little different (curated by Derya Yücel, Künstlerhaus Palais Thurn und Taxis Bregenz, 2023), In Its Own Shadow (curated by Emre Baykal ve Gizem Uslu Tümer, Arter, Istanbul, 2023), Landscapes Florenz & Istanbul (Museum Schloss Moyland, 2023), Locus Solus (curated by Selen Ansen, Arter, Istanbul, 2022), Reset Kriese//Chance (Kunstmuseum Ahlen, 2021), At the End of the Day (Odunpazarı Modern Museum, Eskişehir, 2020), Unbreakable: Women in Glass (curated by Nadja Romain and Koen Vanmechelen, Fondazione Berengo Art Space, Venice, 2020), Cappadox (curated by Fulya Erdemci, Nevşehir, 2017), and Confessions of Dangerous Minds (Saatchi Gallery, London, 2011).