An exhibition by Turkish artist and associate professor Ayşegül Poroy has opened at the Atrium Gallery of Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja. Poroy, the wife of Türkiye’s Ambassador to Nigeria Mehmet Poroy, says the show marks the first time the gallery has hosted a solo art exhibition with another country.
“New Nature” runs from 3 to 20 November. It brings together nearly 70 works in acrylic painting, printmaking and installation with recycled objects. Many of them combine plastic waste with natural materials.
“As a Turkish woman artist, I am very happy that we will be marking a first with this exhibition,” Poroy, an associate professor of fine arts, said in an exclusive interview with TRT Afrika.
When plastic becomes landscape
The exhibition starts from the idea that plastic does not go away.
“I believe that man-made plastics in nature, rather than disappearing, are now transforming alongside nature, becoming part of a new nature,” Poroy said.
She traces the idea partly to the Covid-19 pandemic. “Especially during the pandemic, as humanity began to hear nature’s cries, this had a great impact on artists as well,” she said. “I am one of them.”
Poroy says the series is not meant only as a critique of plastic pollution. In her remarks on the exhibition, she said she is more interested in the transformation itself: what happens to our idea of nature when the natural and the human-made sit so closely together that the line between them blurs.
Materials and layers
To explore that question, Poroy works with what she calls mixed-media and multi-material techniques, bringing natural textures and forms together with materials linked to consumption and waste.
“I made the works with waste materials, combining seed covers, natural pieces I collected from Nigeria’s natural landscape,” she said. “I tried to convey these ideas using examples taken directly from Nigeria’s rich vegetation.”
She says the materials matter because they let the works sit somewhere between representation and physical experience.
The works are also built in layers, which Poroy links to her own life. In her artist statement, she describes each layer as standing for a geography, an encounter or a sense of belonging, as well as a material.
“In this sense, the layers in my works are also layers of memory,” she says in her exhibition remarks.
A life on the move
Those layers come from more than 30 years of diplomatic life, which meant packing up her studio every two years and starting again in a new country.
“Being a diplomat’s spouse means moving, relocating, change, and the chance to get to know different regions,” she said. “Witnessing the same problem in almost all these regions was one of the main reasons behind the creation of this new series.”
Nigeria became a key part of that visual archive. “The nature here is extraordinary. The colours of nature and of the sky are always very striking,” she said.
Learning from Nigerian waste art
Poroy had already been adding waste materials to her paintings before she came to Nigeria. She says Nigerian artists were further ahead.
“They make excellent use of waste materials, whether metal, wood or plastic, especially in three-dimensional works,” she said.
She also pointed to their openness to the world, saying that exhibiting across Africa and beyond helps their work grow. She said she had learned that some of them had already worked on joint cultural projects in Istanbul, Ankara and Marmaris.
Art beyond diplomacy
For Poroy, the exhibition shows that Nigeria–Türkiye ties go “beyond politics and trade”.
“I believe this exhibition will contribute greatly to art’s power to bring cultures together,” she said. She added that the curiosity of local artists, and the workshops and conversations already held, show how much interest there is.
She hopes Nigeria’s art scene, from music and dance to painting, sculpture and waste art, will build closer links with artists in Türkiye, and that similar exhibitions and events will follow in both countries and across Africa.
The opening on 3 November was attended by diplomats, senior officials from Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and artists.
“I think this exhibition will be a good start,” she said.
