Seha Nur Sarı

APHRODITE IN WONDERLAND

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Watercolour on paper, 30 × 50 cm, 2023

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As the final work in the series, Aphrodite in Wonderland turns from the pursuit of beauty to the question of worth. The familiar promise “Because I’m worth it” becomes uncertain: What exactly determines that worth? Is it measured through beauty, youth, desirability, or the products and interventions used to maintain them?

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The work does not reject the pleasures of beauty, adornment, or femininity. Instead, it questions a culture in which these pleasures become entangled with the value assigned to a woman and her body. What appears to offer empowerment can also create another standard against which the self is continuously measured.

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Standing before the mirror, Aphrodite confronts not simply her own reflection, but the contemporary promise that worth can be acquired, displayed, and preserved through beauty. The “Wonderland” is seductive—but its promise remains deliberately unresolved.