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From urn to canvas: Turkish artist used ashes for portrait of deceased
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on March 7, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 25, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
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Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on March 7, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 25, 2026
A Turkish artist uses cremated ashes to create portraits, offering families a unique way to remember loved ones, blending art with memorial.
YALOVA, Turkey (Reuters) - 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."
(Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Frances Kerry)
The artist, Serap Lokmaci, created a portrait using the cremated ashes of Katalin Kollar, which was a new experience for her.
The family celebrates Kollar's birthday by lighting a candle, buying a small cake, and placing her portrait at the top of the table.
Hakan Kilic initially felt strange about having a portrait made from his mother-in-law's ashes, but over time, he and his family grew accustomed to it and felt a connection to her.
Lokmaci described the process as a farewell ceremony and a spiritual journey, indicating that it allowed her to feel a kind of existence after death.
Lokmaci works in a small studio located in Urgup, a town in central Turkey's Nevsehir province.
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