W-Women Globally

Her pseudonym: Jafabrit has been very intriguing, her sense of artistic freedom mixed with taste for controversy, (British?) sense of irony as well as … humbleness have made her the certain target for the W-Women feature. Once I saw her paintings/work, it was clear to me that she is an amazingly talented artist. What I didn’t know was that Corrine’s early life was touched by the poverty and sexual/physical abuse.

In one of the previous interviews for Jean Yates she said: ‘I was born in the Northeast of England, which makes me a Geordie and Geordies (natives of that area) are known for being down to earth, friendly, self depreciating and irreverent (especially towards snobs of any stripe). I think I live up to that definition quite well. I started life in a small mining village called Hetton le Hole and I guess my imagination was there from the get go since I imagined the slag heaps in the next village were beautiful mountains. Our family moved to London when I was 9 years old and it was horrible and wonderful. Horrible because that is when my father’s sexual abuse started, wonderful because living in London during the late 60’s and 70’s was shagadelic and groovy.
At 15 I couldn’t take it any more and said no more to the abuse . After the court case we lost our home in London and everything in it, my father went to prison, we moved back north into my Nana’s home and we were plunged into a period of poverty (and all the social and physical ills that go with that). After she died several months later, and struggling with the poverty, ruined education, no work, and PTSD I attempted suicide. After realizing nobody was going to help me I decided at 18 that it was up to me to help ME, so I was committed to redoing my blueprint my father had damaged and make a happy life.
It was in a Newcastle disco called Grobs that I met my husband and we married and came to America in 1978. It was the beginning of a great new adventure.

Her base is Ohio, where she has been persenting the majority of her art – both in the solo as well as in the group exhibitions every year since 1999.  She is the founder of Jafagirls Art Group, co-founder and curator of ChamberPot Gallery as well as board member of YellowSprings Art Council,  as well as the administrator for their blog.

WWomenGlobally: Why the name: jafabrit?

Corrine Bayraktaroglu: I decided to start a blog and needed a name. Since I had decided I am just another f.. artist out of a million I will call myself jafa – and brit because I am British.

WWG: Who are Jafagirls?

CB: Jafagirls started when a fellow artist and I had a reception for our art exhibit in 2005. We had followed all the protocols and rules to advertize and promote our exhibit, even getting several reviews in local papers. Hardly anyone showed up at the reception and my husband tried to soothe us by joking we were just jafas and who is going to come to the middle of nowhere on a Saturday night for just more jafas. When he told us what jafa (just another f*&%ing artist) meant, we couldn’t stop laughing and then and there we became a little support group and decided we were going to do things differently.

WWG: Is it business or hobby?

CB: Neither. We are a group of friends that hang out together when we can, sometimes do art together, some of us are active members of the Yellow Springs Arts Council, we support each other as artists, and meet once a month just to catch up.

WWG: When did you get the idea of creating your art when it all started? why?

CB: I have always been very creative (knitting, sewing, embroidery, crafts,) thanks to a very creative mother, but it wasn’t till I was 40 and took my first oil painting class that my art blossomed into a whole new journey. Credit has to go to my teacher, Marie Linnekin, who became my art mummy, so to speak. She mentored me for several years and taught me the importance of women supporting each other in the arts.

WWG: Where do you show your art?

CB: I have been in exhibits in Maryland, New Jersey and Ohio.

WWG: Do you have any vision with your art, message to the people who see it?

CB: Oh that is tough because I’m not thinking of a message/vision for viewers when I create. I guess if I have a message it is a result of an issue that I have wanted to question and explore (such as my identity box) or is a playful commentary on life (my daughters tongue piece called the apology) and the love of things (like a beautiful rose).

WWG: Do you have some leading topics in your art?

CB: I would say the human condition and issues related to that.

WWG: What is your source of inspiration?

CB: Everything and anything can grab me and become the driving force to create. It could range from a beautiful flower, to scenes of horror, from a word, an act, an opinion, a mood. I really don’t sit and think about what to paint; I sit and think about what media is going to best represent how I feel about something.

WWG: What ‘takes your breath away’?

CB: There is so many things I can’t list them all, good and bad. Artwise/Visually I would say seeing Kiki Smith’s work at the Met, listening to Samuel Barber’s adagio for Strings, the 2006 movie The Fall directed by Tarsem Singh, and Mount Zion national park just to name a miniscule few.

WWG: Plans for the future?

CB: I am not locked into a career path, or what I should or shouldn’t do professionally but I do know I will continue to create.
However short term I am currently enjoying the challenge of participating in group exhibits nationally and internationally that address particular issues. “your documents please” is an international travelling about identity. Art house sketchbook project is travelling around the USA and is about “everyone we know” and my newest challenge is painting a hubcap for the “Landfill project”.

Visit Jafabrit’s blog.