In June 2023, my work was presented at ARTCONTACT Istanbul, an international contemporary art fair in Turkey.

An art fair is a particular environment for an artist.

Art exists there alongside galleries, collectors, conversations, decisions and the realities of the art market. A work is not encountered only as an image or an idea, but also as an object that may eventually leave with someone and become part of another life.

At the time, this was an important experience for me.

Until then, much of my relationship with my work had been centred on making it — the private process of experimentation, uncertainty and discovery inside the studio.

ARTCONTACT allowed me to see another side of an artistic practice.

Making the work is only the beginning.

Eventually it has to leave the studio, enter a larger professional context and find its own place within it.

For me, participating in the fair was one of the early moments when being an artist began to mean something larger than simply creating art.

The studio is where the work begins.

The world outside it is where its second life starts.