Danko Stjepanovic
Artwork Details:
Artist(s)
Semiha Berksoy
Title
Chain Breaker (Self Portrait)
Date
1968
Medium(s)
Oil on hardboard
Dimensions/Duration
100 x 70 cm
Photo Credit
Chain Breaker (Self Portrait)
Semiha Berksoy’s autobiographical paintings encompass an amalgam of fantasy, spirituality and imagination. In Chain Breaker (Self-Portrait) (1968), she is conceived as a hooded black figure, emerging from a triangular dark void set against aquatic, uneven brushstrokes. Looped chains slink towards Berksoy’s feet, ominous and threatening, yet they do not touch her soles. It is the record of a stormy private realm, a reflective totem, and an insight into Berksoy’s flighty imagination of the self.
