About Me
“While dealing with my art, I lose my self and find it again. When I finish an artwork, I watch the outer world in amazement as if I was awakened from sleep.”
Hello!
I’m Burcu Kızılkaya.
There was always a curious artist in me who learned a little bit of that. During my career as a financial analyst, which I started as a chemical engineer, the place I always ran was the workshops where I could bring colorful ideas in my head to life. Over the years, I have learned many techniques and materials from many branches of art. I think because of the colorful character in me, instead of concentrating on a single branch, blending various techniques has always been more attractive for me.Due to the recent deplorable situation of our world, the idea of creating something using waste materials overwhelmed me. With this thought, I started to create papier mache products using waste paper, tiny house villages using carpentry wastes, and decorative objects by painting used bottles. Thanks to the panels and paintings I make, I sometimes step into a completely different world. I think in time the cosmos will show me true single way …or maybe not. But right now, there is only one truth, I am making my childhood dream come true.
The Techniques I Use
With this technique, I can reveal my natural, simple and non-artificial side in me. While making my products from paper pulp, I do all the steps myself from the beginning to end. I use waste paper from my friends’ workplaces, my children’s used papers, egg cartons and many similar waste papers and cardboard. Everyone around me; my friends, my friends’ friends, the shopkeepers I shop from; they are all aware of what I do and instead of throwing away these materials, they save them for me. I cut these papers and cardboards into small pieces and soak them in water for a while. After about a day, I squeeze them, break them up, mix it with flour and glue and make a dough. Then the design step starts. Sometimes I can shape the product at once, sometimes in 2-3 times by waiting for it to dry. After shaping, I have to wait for about nearly a week for it to dry completely depending on the air temperature. When the product dries, various leveling and coloring processes follow. At this step, I use products such as various acrylic paints, oil paints and epoxy resin. Now it’s time for photography. Especially I do my own photo shooting and social media sharing by myselfbecause no one can know the exact color of my work and the texture parts that need to be revealed better than I do. Finally, it’s your turn…
I like to use a wide variety of textures in many of my works. Sometimes I realize this with only acrylic paint and sometimes I use 5-6 different methods and materials on top of each other. While making these textures, I use so many different materials; like acrylic and oil paints, various mediums for thickening or thinning these paints, plaster, sand, cement, sawdust, rope, nut shells, net, eggshells, bottle caps, wooden pencil dusts and many other materials that you can think of or not. I think this curiosity started from my childhood. I was already collecting pine nut shells and pencil dust back then. My mom used to call me “my garbage girl” 
I use artistic epoxy in Resin Art. I like this technique because it satisfies a different part of me. Bright and flamboyant…. I don’t like using the resin alone. I must mix it with other materials. Sometimes I use it for my paintings, sometimes for my tiny house projects and sometimes for my papier mache products.
Actually, it is not true to call this a technique. It is more like improvisation of projects come through within me. In tiny houses works, I mostly use wooden pieces left overs from the workshop of my carpenter acquaintances and my father’s workshop. Also, I use many different materials such as air freshener sticks, seashells, stones, dried plants, pine cones, acorns, pieces of broken branches, vegetable and fruit nets. When I go outside, I return home with many materials that I have collected around. My husband gets mad at me and says ” One day you will fall while looking around”. After all, everything around me is an art material for me.
