Contemporary artist Hayal Pozantı continues to garner recognition for her work, and fashion house Dior took notice. For its iconic Lady Dior handbag, Dior has run a program called the Lady Dior Art Project since 2016. Each year a select group of international artists are invited to use the bag as their canvas, and this year Pozantı was one of them.
Known for her conceptual and emotional work, Pozantı designed three bags. One of them is a clutch featuring a nocturnal panorama, and the interior is covered with mirrors, offering a reading of oneself and the world. The other two are inspired by one of Pozantı’s passions, trekking. The iconic "D, I, O, R" charms are reinvented in a hieroglyphic alphabet conceived by the artist. Indeed, Pozantı’s work often considers and plays with language. (One such work is permanently installed in the New York Public Library.)
After RC, Pozantı studied at Sabancı University and subsequently worked in Turkey for five years. When she arrived at the Yale School of Art as a graduate student, she had been feeling bombarded by the online world. She weaned herself off the internet and vowed to make something by hand. Pozantı went onto create a visual language of her own called Instant Paradise, invented, hieroglyphic-like characters, which correspond to numbers and letters in the English alphabet. From more abstract shapes, her work has now moved on to encompass color and movement, something she attributes to moving to Vermont and hiking in nature.
Published February 2025
