Bİhter Yasemİn Adalı

Inspired by the works of Fluxus Artists, Bihter Yasemin Adali left the Painting Program at the School of Fine Arts in Mimar Sinan University in 2003 to focus on interdisciplinary art at the School of Art and Design at the State University of New York at Purchase where she designed her own course work combining the study of drawing/painting, dance, history of art and architecture, psychology with new media. Through such cross-overs, she rediscovered drawing/painting as a performative process that not only simultaneously generates line, movement and sound, but also narratives; that the process of drawing/painting is akin to the entry of an archeological site, an initiation into excavating the psyche through a visitation into the personal and collective unconscious. Much like the free-association of Freudian psychoanalysts and the active imagination process of Jungians, the act of drawing/painting results in the spontaneous rise of symbolic imagery belonging to an invisible inner space. When these images are embodied and enacted during performance, the invisible inner space is made visible, the manifold of hidden meanings are uncovered.Upon graduation from Purchase, Adali continued her pursuit of bringing images to life through her training at Tamalpa Institute in California, where she had the great fortune to study with postmodern dance pioneers Anna Halprin and Soto G. Hoffman. Here, besides receiving immersive training towards becoming an expressive art therapist, Bihter Yasemin Adali developed her presence as performer, honed her skills in structuring cross disciplinary collaborations and most importantly, she deepened her understanding of art as an healing force. Bihter Yasemin Adali pursues a dual career as an artist and an art therapist in private practice since her return home to Istanbul in 2011.