Arezu Zargar
Artist statement
My work is rooted in language—its exposure, its memory, and its ongoing transformation. I explore this with ceramics, video, and installation, often starting with a tactile, familiar operation using clay. The material is an unseen witness to pressure, time, and exposure, leaving impressions of contact, and the tensions between softness and resistance.
As a paleontologist, I think of the body not merely as something physical but as an archive—a stratified system in which geology and affect converge. I am drawn to moments in which materiality and meaning disintegrate: where clay is flesh, where object becomes memory, where a surface fissures like a wound or a landscape.
Today's cross-border partnerships, such as 120 Steps to White in Romanian Creative Week and the Jaipur art week, are opening up new ways of experiencing community, process, and place. The experiences are affirming my love of crossing contexts and cultures through material as bridge, not barrier.
In parallel with my studio practice, I’ve initiated BON Art Project—an independent platform for curatorial and collaborative experiments. This project, evolving from online exhibitions to artist residencies, reflects my belief in the necessity of dialogue in contemporary art: not just between artist and audience, but among artists themselves, across distance, discipline, and identity.
Through all I do, I attempt to make room—for the in-between, the close, and the not resolved. I believe in art that listens as much as it speaks.