The Apotropaic series takes its name from the Greek apotrópaios, to deflect or turn away ill omens. Each is an interpretation of the nazar, a powerful amulet which absorbs and displaces malevolent energy through its gaze. In Kilicbeyli’s handling, the ancient concept of the evil eye is transfigured through further anthropomorphization; her eyes grow appendages and personalities and are layered with personal significance.  

Photos from LOOKOUT: Basak Kilicbeyli and Isabelle Schipper a duo show curated by Addison Namnoum, Automat Collective, Philadelphia

Text excerpts from LOOKOUT’s essay “Power in a Look: Oracles and Amulets” written by Addison Namnoum

Apotropaic #1 (Nazar; نظر , sight), hand-tufted acrylic rug, 3.7 x 4.5 ft, 2023

The eyes in these nazar rugs are more than just physical parts; their seeing is their skill and their strangeness. Then what does it mean to see? What does it mean to foresee?

It is blessing and it is curse.

It runs ahead of us.

It sloughs off the ordinary. It sees past, slices through. Its seeing is a cut.

An omen. Warning.

The strength to know what others won’t.

Apotropaic #2 (Basîret; بصیرت (baseerat), insight), hand-tufted acrylic rug, 3.5x4 ft, 2024

Apotropaic #2 (Baseerat) is a creature of insight. Personifying wisdom, her eye looks through to the future with an intimate understanding of the past. Her body fluxes between masculine, feminine, and other. Her hairy arms reach for the sky. Pointed, painted fingernails speak for her flamboyance. There is something deeply endearing about this amulet-being, this protector.

Apotropaic #3 (Mahalle; مَحَلَّة (mahalla), neighborhood), hand-tufted acrylic rug, 4x4 ft, 2024

Apotropaic #3 (Mahalle) meanwhile refers to the watchful eyes of one’s immediate community. It is a neighborhood of gossipers and wagging tongues, the everyday arbiters we are measured and flanked by at all times. With their crowd of pupils in vibrant blue-green-yellow, they resemble the hundred eyes of Argus the all-seeing. Nothing escapes them.

Well, we are in spectacle all the time. The gender spectacle is in how we wear our hair, how we ornament our bodies, how we hold a gait or let a word fly. As Butler suggests, it is this many-mantled thing we put on in the morning. Or at a different scale, it is the thing that we put ourselves toward in the constant becoming of being a body in society.