Selin Balcı

Selin Balcı is a visual artist and biologist who creates works with Petri dishes filled with mold, fungi, and other organisms, and refers to her work as "a living studio." She has exhibited internationally in both group and solo exhibitions.

Education Balcı earned her Bachelor of Science in Forestry at Istanbul University, Turkey, in 2002, and went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Intermedia at West Virginia University in 2008. She received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2012.

Recognition Balcı has been recognized with several fellowships, including an Artist in Residence fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst, VA, and a College Art Association Professional Development Fellowship. She was both a Hot Picks Artist (2012) and a Project Grant recipient (2014) at Smack Mellon in Brooklyn, NY, and has twice been named a finalist for the Trawick Prize at the Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards in Bethesda, MD for artists from the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area (2013 and 2015).

Technique Balcı, trained in biology, finds her samples in tree bark and soil from her backyard, and sometimes collaborates with her plant pathologist husband for colorful natural material, and stores her specimens in the refrigerator in test tubes. or on Yupo paper covered with watch glasses to magnify certain elements of the growths. Balcı studies how microorganisms behave and relate to one another before beginning new projects, and is interested in how their interactions reflect conflicts and boundaries in the human world.