From urn to canvas: Turkish artist used ashes for portrait of deceased

Hakan Kilic and his family celebrate his mother-in-law's birthday every year in Turkey's Yalova province next to a portrait of her made from her cremated ashes.

Serap Lokmaci, who occasionally works with sand for her drawings, approached the family with the idea of painting a portrait of Katalin Kollar, the mother-in-law, with her remains after hearing that she had been cremated.

Kilic said the family was interested in the idea of having a portrait of Kollar, who was Hungarian and had been cremated in Hungary. They originally brought half the ashes to Turkey, where there are no crematoriums, to spread them in the Bosphorus Strait, but after Lokmaci's suggestion, decided to save some for the portrait.

It was a strange feeling having a portrait made from ashes of a deceased family member in the house, Kilic said as he unwrapped a second portrait that the artist painted of Kollar last week.

"At first we got excited when we passed it... but with time we got used to it. We feel like a family member is there," he said.

Kilic married Kollar's daughter and the family takes the portrait down from the wall to celebrate Kollar's birthday every year.

"We buy a small cake. My wife, our children and I light a small candle together. We put (the portrait of Kollar) at the top of the table. My little son blows out the candle," Kilic said in an interview.

Lokmaci, the artist, said the process of painting with ashes was like "a farewell ceremony, a spiritual journey" for her. In the small studio where she works in Urgup, a town in central Turkey's Nevsehir province, paintings and pottery line the walls.

Lokmaci's portraits of Kollar were her first using ashes. She worked at her table with the canvas laid out in front of her, at times sprinkling the ashes on an adhesive.

"The aspect that affects me the most is that I see a kind of existence after death," Lokmaci said. "There are times when I see her in my dreams after the work is finished. In other words, I am under its effect for a while."