EFA STUDIO PROGRAM: Member Artists
Nazli Efe
Nazli Efe is a Turkish-Cypriot interdisciplinary artist whose work spans installation, sculpture, and performance, exploring themes of Water, memory, and the unconscious mind.
Efe approaches Water as a ritualistic, meditative, and performative medium through which she accesses the unconscious and evokes the emotional presence of memory. Her practice is influenced by traditional techniques such as marbling (painting on the surface of Water) and kurşun dökme, a Turkish divination ritual where molten lead is dropped into Water. She reinterprets this ritual using molten wax, creating amorphous, Rorschach-like forms that act as vessels for memory and emotion. These wax forms, combined with found objects, shape the visual language of her installations.
Her recent work delves into the act of preserving memory, drawing from medical and culinary methods such as gauze wrapping, salt curing, vacuum sealing, and wax-coating. These material choices reflect themes of healing, conservation, and ritual care. Through transforming materials in an alchemical way, she engages with the ever-changing nature of memory. Memory follows form, and form follows memory.
Nazli earned her MFA with high honors from Pratt Institute in 2022 after studying architecture at Bahcesehir University and Virginia Tech. Her work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Monira Foundation, RAINRAIN Gallery, and NADA, and recognized with awards including the Stutzman Family Foundation Sculpture Award and the Pratt Outstanding Merit Award. Her work has been featured in Hyperallergic and Whitehot magazines. She participated in the Pratt>Forward Residency Program in 2024 and is currently a fellow in The Bronx Museum's AIM Program. Nazli teaches at Pratt Institute’s K-12 Center, and since 2022, she has been a Member Artist at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Program in New York.
Photo Credit: Federico Savini