Belgin Yücelen

Belgin Yucelen’s artwork is true to the desire to create meaning and beauty in subtle simplicity. Within her installations, sculptures, films, and paintings, she's asking Who are we?, Where are we going?, so together we can achieve basic human wisdom. Rather than a direct representation, Yücelen creates fictional worlds to conjure unrealized possibilities and to challenge imaginations. Traces of her previous years in Turkey appear in her artwork at the fascinating edge where East and West meet and ancient and modern coincide. Yücelen’s intent is to engage the community in understanding how norms and values within the present landscape were shaped by the past and how the future will form them. 

Yücelen’s figurative bronze sculptures are a philosophical journey through the essential elements of life. Each sculpture is a visual commentary that questions our urge to overthrow our present norms, values, and aesthetics, instead of using them to inform our progress. By mashing past and future together, Yücelen dares us to cherish the human intimacy and face to face collaboration that we used to take for granted, and to discover new pathways to them.

Yücelen, a Turkish-American, is inspired by her cultural history. She studied sculpture at the Florence Accademia D'Arte in Florence, University of Colorado Boulder, Art Students League of Denver, and Scottsdale Art School. With a PhD in chemical engineering and research, Yücelen has also been recognized by organizations such as the Colorado Creative Industries, Boulder Country Arts Alliance, Moon and Stars Project Grant, Clark Hulings Fund, Hemera Foundation, and National Sculpture Society. She founded the House of Serein in 2019 as a creative space for community use and studios for artists in Boulder, CO. She is currently serving as a board member at the Dairy Arts Center and as a grant panelist at the Boulder Arts Commission.

View Belgin's artwork in the 2023 exhibit Light Weight.