Pinar Yolacan

Born in Ankara, Turkey in 1981, Pinar Yolacan studied Fashion at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, and Media Art in Chelsea School of Art before graduating from the Cooper Union with a BFA in 2004. Following her solo debut “Perishables” at Rivington Arms Gallery, her work was exhibited in group shows including, “Strangers with Angelic Faces,” Aksanat and Space Studios, Istanbul and London; “Art Robe,” UNESCO, Paris; “Wild Girls,” Exit Art; Art and Commerce Festival of Emerging Photographer; Frieze Art Fair and the Armory Show. Yolacan was a runner up at New York Times Magazine’s “Capture the Times” contest. Her work was included in the book “The Portrait Now” published by the National Portrait Gallery in London. Since 1997, reviews about her work appeared internationally in the New York Times, Art in America, Art Review, Bidoun and i-D magazines.

I craft garments that reference a period in England’s imperialist past. With the garments I designed for each woman, I express the significance of the women’s age and appearance. The aging body of my subjects and the rotting garments I made are not a commentary on the actual condition of the subject’s aging, but on what she represents as an imperial icon. In “Perishables,” I use internal organs of animals to make such clothes, and I use the vocabulary of Victorian period fashion to make a statement on the decay of what that era symbolizes.