Colourful, Joyful, Dream-like — A Conversation with Artist Özlem Thompson
Özlem Thompson
Istanbul · Biology & Botany · Belsize Park, London · Since 2015Contemporary artist whose canvases weave together science and imagination, Mediterranean colour and quantum physics, the natural world and the worlds we haven't discovered yet. Her studio in Belsize Park was once Piet Mondrian's London home.
"I am a multidisciplinary artist who tries to paint things the way I see and imagine them. I love to mix the colours of the natural world with my perceptions and feelings, while including imperfection and incompleteness — reflecting the abstraction of the reality of our being and environment in this universe."
Tell us about yourself.
Born in Istanbul, Özlem studied biology at the University of Anatolia, completing a Master's in Botany on Exotic Plants and Their Usage in Industrial Design in collaboration with Istanbul Technical University. After questioning whether the academic path was truly hers, she moved to London in 2015 and found her way to painting.
"Nowadays I paint and work in my home, which is the same flat in which Piet Mondrian painted in London."
Your greatest inspirations or influences?
"My aesthetic is informed by the creativity of the women in my family — my grandmother made colourful clothes, while her mother was a decorative cabinet painter. My work developed to combine scientific ideas, human feelings and my imagining of the universe that we don't yet understand."
"My deep interest in physics and especially quantum physics helped open the doors of my imagination."
Tell us about your creative process.
"I let nature give me initial inspiration, and then combine my feelings as they are at the time with the flow to create expression in composition and colour. I love to listen to great music or audiobooks while I paint."
"I love most of all colours and shapes, and how they make us feel."
How has the pandemic affected your creativity, and what does wellbeing mean to you?
"I think the pandemic highlighted how important art is for humanity, and it really helped me create some works that I am proud of and develop my expression."
"I love Yayoi Kusama's work, and think her recognition came so late."
"To be honest, painting — and while painting listening to great novelists and classical musicians — gives me the most nourishment, as well as the time I spend with my family."
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Read on Antakly Projects ↗ Art · Colour · JoyArtist whose joyful, colour-driven practice resonates directly with Özlem's celebration of life's beauty and complexity.
Read on Antakly Projects ↗Antakly Projects — originally Ninu Nina — has been in conversation with artists, photographers, designers and creatives from across the world since 2003. Özlem Thompson's joyful, science-inflected practice is exactly the kind of voice this platform was built to celebrate.
And for the personal rants, opinions you didn't ask for, and the occasional existential spiral: follow me on Substack.
Colours and shapes, and how they make us feel. ✦
