nedret andre

The work of Nedret Andre reflects the multi-cultural diversity of her background. Her work is a fusion of many elements: recognizable landscapes, Eastern imagery, and Western painterly style. Her paintings invite the viewers to project their experiences into this fusion of real and imagined landscapes. She uses her cross-cultural frame of reference to interact with her immediate environment and to create a symbolic language through which viewers are invited to share their experience of the world. Her motifs are at once familiar and foreign, intimate and remote, serious and whimsical. The suspension between these polarities creates a shared space between the artist and the audience through which the audience may participate in the imagined world of the artist.

Hagia Sophia is a clear example of her work as a fusion of different images and cultures. Here the viewer is presented with a bird’s-eye perspective of what at first appears to be a familiar scene: Istanbul and its most famous architectural landmark. However, on closer viewing, the image is not what it at first seems to be. Is this Istanbul or Boston? Is that the Bosphorus or the Charles River? Viewers discover embedded details of both worlds and find themselves at an imaginary intersection of east and west. Through the union of these two spaces, viewers are presented with the possibility of multiple narratives and encouraged to create their own platform to rethink identity, community, and place.

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