Hayal Pozanti

I see painting as a way of imagining new worlds. Of world making through dreaming. Hayal Pozanti (b. 1983, Istanbul, Turkey) is an artist who lives and works in Manchester, Vermont. Using oil stick and oil pastel on canvas and paper with a sculptural approach, Pozanti creates swirling, organic forms that rise and fall in waves of deep, jewel-toned hues. Her compositions originate from a discrete set of thirty-one shapes she developed to function as icons in a personal lexicon, forming abstract calligraphic arrangements. Over the past decade, these glyphs have evolved and softened into new forms that suggest imaginary landscapes. Pozanti’s compositions are filled with amoeba-like shapes, suggesting mysterious biological life forms and abstract worlds that reflect universal truths about reality. She views painting as both a means of world-making and a way to be present in the world as it is. In 2021, the artist created Instant Paradise , an eighty-five-foot-long permanent art installation on the ceiling of the New York Public Library's largest circulating branch. Consisting of colorful, sculptural iterations of the thirty-one forms from the language she developed, the installation is on permanent view at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. Representing the American Pavilion at Gwangju Biennale in 2024, Pozanti showcased a series of sculptures responding to what it means to present Asian art in the US at this moment in history.