Mathilde Melek An
Artist
French-Turkish artist Mathilde Melek An is working on topics like gender and identity by using her multicultural background and playing with certain visual icons and patterns. She participated with several works in the Mahalla festival.
Mathilde Melek An produced the performance Video “Golddess” in Mexico, Istanbul and Cappadocia. The artist is performing in a golden armor with a headdress fusing forms of masks, crowns and helmets. Azure blue pigment powder on her skin is completing the orchestration of the birth of a goddess popping out of the blue to conquer a timeless unknown world full of secrets and oddities. The title “Golddess” is creating some of the humorous multi-layers within Mathilde Melek An’s works. The satirical touch implies all kind of serious abysses and ambiguities. During the Mahalla Festival the Golddess appeared on the 18th of November at 3pm at the Window of her private Boudoir in the Palazzo in Zabbar. She started a tour through the Palazzo, left to the Street and disappeared in the St. Patrick FC's Bar to be never seen again.
For the Mahalla Share House An produced a Toolbox with a personal memorial jewelry-collection made out of plexiglass, the MAmulets. Photographs are incorporated in the objects. TOOLBOX #1  //  Travelling Light  //  2018/  Two Photographs of the M.M. -serial were exhibited with the Toolbox in Museum Fortress Builders. In the series M.M. the artist is reenacting the esthetics of certain iconic pictures of the film star Marilyn Monroe. Wearing a blond wig and imitating the poses of the orchestration of a baby-faced sex bomb the performance reveals images that echoes and mirror archetypes of experiences by renaming and re-contextualizing them. You can see Visuals in this Post: http://mahalla.inenart.eu/2019/01/30/multi-layered-identities-by-mathilde-melek-an/