A Warrior’s Rest

A Warrior’s Rest

Medium: Mixed media (Paper, found light-weight materials, adhesive)

Origin: Istanbul, COVID-19 Lockdown Period 2021

Location: Turkey, Istanbul

Artist Statement

My work is an exploration of what remains when the world falls silent. Whether through the heavy, gestural layers of abstract painting or the fragile construction of paper sculpture, I seek to document the “Human Echo”—the vibrational trace of memory, longing, and survival that lingers after an event has passed.

The core of my practice lies in the tension between permanence and fragility. During the global lockdowns in Istanbul, when traditional materials were inaccessible, I began to see scarcity not as a limitation, but as a medium. By utilizing humble materials like paper and light-weight ephemera, I construct forms that mirror the human condition: seemingly solid, yet inherently delicate. My sculptures, such as those from the Warrior’s Rest series, serve as monuments to collective resilience, birthed from a time of forced isolation and reclaimed in the public sphere.

In my paintings, I treat the canvas as an archaeological site. Using a palette of deep earth tones against ethereal, celestial blues, I build “topographies of the soul.” Each layer of impasto represents a year, a secret, or a “Shattered Silence.” I am fascinated by the way a horizon line can be both a boundary and a bridge, and how abstract forms can evoke “Faces Without Features”—universal identities that belong to everyone and no one at once.

Ultimately, my art is a dialogue with the aftermath. I am not interested in the moment of impact, but in the ripple that follows. Through texture and light, I invite the viewer to stand within the “Fragmented Ascent” of our shared history and find beauty in the remnants of what we leave behind.

Hussein Nashwan writes:

A great leap for a persevering Jordanian artist, who is serious and loyal to her visual art experience, frankly. The sculptural work accomplished by the Jordanian expatriate visual artist Aseel Azizieh, who resides in Turkey, drew me to an object holding his head in his hands, and it was shown in the “Kaleemat” gallery.

In fact, in the work, the most natural, simplicity and depth were combined, and they are the two vocabularies in which the beauty of astonishment was achieved, and we can say that art is undoubtedly the astonishment that transports the viewer to a brutal or primitive area.  Just as simplicity and depth met in the work, it also met with lightness and weight in terms of the contrast that gives the work its uniqueness. The work is made up of layers of paper that make the work light compared to other materials, but the first look makes the recipient delude that the work represents a sculptural body of heavy solid materials, and a source Conjecture is the mastery of the details and the shape in which the sculpture is placed, and the shape of its balanced sitting that suggests weight.

The choice of paper may be a material for work, intentionally or unintentionally,  it represents a sign of human fragility and lightness, and keeping paper with its letters and images without coloring, indicates the memory of the human body. His or her suffering and his or her journey in life, the work presented by Aseel Azizieh represented a great leap for a Jordanian artist who is persistent, serious and loyal to her visual art experience, and it was amazing, Bravo Aseel