EFA STUDIO PROGRAM: Member Artists
Nazli Efe
Nazlı Efe is a New York–based interdisciplinary artist of Turkish and Cypriot descent, working across installation, sculpture, and performance. Her practice explores themes of Water, memory, and the unconscious.
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.
Efe 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 the Bronx Museum, RAINRAIN Gallery, the Sotheby's Institute of Art, and Monira Foundation, and featured in the New York Times, Hyperallergic, and Whitehot Magazine. She is the recipient of the Stutzman Family Foundation Sculpture Award Special Recognition and the Pratt Outstanding Merit Award, and has been nominated for the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Award.
Efe has participated in residencies and fellowships, including the Bronx Museum AIM Fellowship, ProjectArt Teaching Artist Residency, and Pratt>Forward. She teaches at Pratt Institute's K–12 Center and leads workshops at organizations such as the Textile Arts Center and Powerhouse Arts. Nazli has been a Member Artist at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Program in New York since 2022.
Photo Credit: Federico Savini