By Heidi Trautmann

Özden Selenge, who collects the information for her stories and paintings like picking flowers in a field around a village, has shown us - after some years of silence – a new series of exquisite miniature paintings along with launching her newest book at the Atatürk Cultural Centre in Nicosia. The attention she got by her fans was great. For you to understand how she grew up and how she lived and was motivated to write and paint, an excerpt from my interview with her, included in my book “Art and Creativity in North Cyprus” may just do that.

Born in Altınova near Famagusta on 9 July, 1946 Özden frequently moved house as her father was an elementary school teacher who was sent to various villages, so she regards the whole island as her home.  But there was one very special village where her heart still is, that is Vasilia/Karşıyaka, with her parents’ house between the mountains and the sea, between earth, heaven and water.  It was pure village life, no electricity, no running water in the house, but full of stories. The waterfall where they went to have their picnic still gushed with water, and the purple-tinged mountains were full of mysteries and ghosts. Her parents were respected and loved by the villagers, especially because of her father's status as a teacher. He held lessons for six to12-year-olds in just one room, so the youngsters learned from their older peers.

Özden's interest in painting and storytelling began right there.

Özden describes her pictures as ‘painted poems’ and that is how they appear to me too.  She is a poet both with her brush and words;  a storyteller walking through the lives of people from the village and cities like Nicosia or Famagusta. She opens her heart and senses, to listen to what they tell her – she can read between the lines of a heart – and then she goes home with this collection of individual stories, locks herself in for many days in a row – no telephone, no radio – and then she concentrates on painting or writing.

“I plunge like a maniac into this sea of information I have gathered,” she says. “I hardly eat or drink, and sometimes work for 15 hours without putting the brush or pencil down.  I get completely absorbed in what I do, and then I take an occasional bite, a glass of water, but my thoughts are there on my desk in my studio until the work is done.”  Like a birth after many hours of labour.

Once, she even rented a place to stay in Famagusta for three months to “make the city and its people my own, the people of today and the ghosts of long ago, the ghosts of our ancestors, who still look out of some windows or stand in an old doorway.”  Özden has friends all over the island and she will always be informed on the happenings, social or political little comedies, but she has to see for herself, these things have their own language for Özden.  Her first-hand experiences often form part of Özden’s love for detail which reveals itself in her delicate miniature paintings, depicting a blind musician with his fiddle at a wedding.  You can see that he is blind, he wears differently coloured shoes.  A bride and bridegroom wearing sad expressions and colourfully dressed ladies, all laughing. Another painting with scenes of harvesting and preparing food for winter, and people in warmer clothes sitting and eating and telling stories.

Petite Özden, so full of life, with many stories still to tell, she retired from teaching in 1988 but has never stopped working; her curiosity and love for people drives her to continue collecting more material. “Our lives are constantly changing,” she said. “Outside influences can be overwhelming, too much for many of us, and so it is important for me to remind my people that they are foremost Cypriots. If I have succeeded in opening their minds and setting their hearts alight, especially my twin granddaughters’ generation, then I have fulfilled my life’s task.”

This time in April 2013 Özden Selenge has concentrated solely on miniature paintings continuing to describe village life in the old days, the traditions and the love for the country. She also reminds us of the solidarity and mutual recognition in a community, the interactivity of people and nature and especially the joy of celebrating together after the work is done.