Pınar Civan was born in Istanbul in 1975. She lives and works in her studios in Paris and Bern. Pınar is a multi discipline artist. Although her academic background is political science she always worked as an artist.
Why did you become an artist?
I don’t think that anybody decides to become an artist. I wanted to tell stories as I see them and I didn’t know how not to tell them. So I danced, I wrote, I took photos and I painted since I was a kid. But It took me some time to finally to be able to say I want to only paint now and I want to do nothing else but paint.
When you create a new work, how do you go about it? What comes first?
I work intuitively and I don’t usually sketch. You can observe in my works that I have all this energy waiting to come out. And I don’t try to tame this energy. I let it go as freely as possible. There is this exciting ritual of sitting across from the empty canvas for as long as it takes before finally putting a finger on what I want to tell on that empty space and how I want to tell it. Most of the times I talk to myself, there are poems or songs or some sentences that are stuck in my head and they find their way on the canvas eventually. I look into myself, I listen to my emotions and then I go with the flow intuitively. 
What can you tell us about your studio, what makes it special to you and how does it influence the way you work?
I believe in love at first sight when I see a studio or a space. This was love at first sight. I have to admit it’s not big enough for all my work but it has great light and I have musician neighbors, their practice motivates my creativity and I have this lovely park just around the corner (and also my favorite ice cream spot) where I can take my painting outdoors when I am in the mood. 
Is there a work of art in your life that has especially impressed you?
As like most of us I am mesmerized by certain art works, some of them are so beautiful they almost make me cry out of joy. So this is a hard one to pick but I remember as a small girl seeing Marc Chagall’s Blue Circus and being hypnotized and I carried that feeling with me all those years.
Reach to the stars: where will you be in 5 years?
I will be painting. I don’t want to think about the “success” or make plans to achieve success. All I want to do is to paint till the end. Audre Lorde says “I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my noseholes--everywhere. Until it's every breath I breathe.” For me that’s to paint.
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