Born and raised in Turkey, Nihal started drawing and painting at a young age. Despite her demonstrated talent in art, she studied physics and nuclear engineering and worked in the software analysis field in the U.S. and Canada. In 2003, one of her mentors recommended that she devote herself exclusively to painting. Over the span of her career as a professional artist, she has experimented both with premeditated and spontaneous painting processes.

Creating a pastiche of light and shadow, Nihal often uses just a palette knife to apply paint to the canvas. She depicts a fragile but boldly expressive interplay between analysis and emotion, concealing and revealing her subject at once. Whether painting whirling dervishes, dramatic landscapes, or impressionistic figures, Kececi masks the known with the unknown and explores the transcendental.

“Through my intuitive painting process, I have learned self-transcendence. This approach encourages me to let go of preconceptions and just react to what I see developing on the canvas. My work is about hope and emerges as a response to an accumulation of sensory experience and visual memory over time. I believe my paintings awaken the analytical mind and poetic soul simultaneously.”

She is a member of the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery at Glen Echo, Maryland, The Washington Project for the Arts in Washington DC, and Contemporary Art Network, New York NY, Del Ray Artisans Gallery Alexandria, VA, and Museum of the Americas, Doral, FL. Each year, she sponsors and sits on the jury of the annual Washington, DC Turkish Festival Kids Art Contest. Nihal lives and works in Washington DC Capital Hill.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

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