Kita
Top line; Surah Yusuf, verse 76, from the Holy Quran, “above every knower there is a higher knower.”
Text under; Surah Alaq from the Holy Quran.
Soot ink on ahar paper, 2018.
Deniz Öktem Bektaş
As a mother, these difficult times have been enriching in terms of family life on many levels. In our home-office workspace with my husband, we have managed to squeeze in my sons's online education as well. While he has been joining his classes, we have tried to continue working as we did before. But it has been a huge challenge to find time in solitude to keep working on calligraphy. My son studying, my husband sitting at his table and I practicing the script of Naskh in our home-office living room have proved once more that motherhood means finding solutions to all kinds of difficulties and making life easier for each member of the family.
During the quarantine weeks, I have practiced random letters, letter combinations and words in the script of Naskh and this resulted in a "practice art piece." It hasn’t been easy to concentrate on calligraphy in this chaotic time so I have chosen to keep my hand in shape by writing as much as I could without forcing myself to perfect a particular text. The minutes I have managed to get at my table have been precious as always. Calligraphy heals, strengthens, provides comfort and connects one to the Creator.
I pray to Allah that this time shall pass very soon and that we all come out of it with lots of blessings.
Deniz Öktem Bektaş was born in Holland in 1976. She graduated from ‘İmam-Hatip’ high-school in Istanbul in 1994. After completing her studies at the Department of English Literature at Boğaziçi University, she continued her graduate work at Georgetown University in the U.S.A.
While working on her masters at the Department of Communication, Culture and Technology, she met Mohamed Zakariya with whom she started calligraphy lessons in riq’a and naskh. Coming back to Turkey at the end of 2002, she continued to take calligraphy lessons with Hasan Çelebi and Davut Bektaş in the scripts of riq’a, naskh and thuluth.
In 2007, she obtained her ijaza in the naskh and thuluth scripts. She received encouragement awards in naskh at the 7th International Calligraphy Competition organized by IRCICA in 2007 and at the Calligraphy Biennial in Sharjah in 2008. In the national calligraphy competition conducted by the Presidency of Religious Affairs of Turkey (2015), she received 3rd prize in writing several pages from the Qur’an in the script of naskh. Mrs. Öktem has participated in exhibitions in Turkey and internationally, and continues her work alongside her husband, Davut Bektaş, in their studio in Istanbul.
Email: denizoktembektas@gmail.com Whatsapp: 00 90 536 272 51 17