HIKÂYE | STORY

November 13th - December 17th, 2025
Lydia Dildilian

Bio
Lydia Dildilian was born in Mission Viejo, California, and raised through a nomadic upbringing across the diverse landscapes of the United States. She earned a B.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio (2012) and an M.F.A. in Painting from the University of Florida, Gainesville (2016).

Her work has been exhibited across the United States and internationally in Italy, Korea, England, and China. Dildilian has mounted 16 solo exhibitions and contributed to over 50 group or juried shows. Notably, in 2024, she participated in an international drawing retrospective at the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. Her hikâye | story project will be featured in an upcoming solo exhibition at Michigan State University, where she will serve as a visiting artist and Holland Scholar. Other forthcoming solo exhibitions include the South Arkansas Arts Center, El Dorado, and the Spiva Art Gallery at Missouri Southern State University. Her work has received multiple exhibition awards and institutional grants and is held in private collections across the U.S., as well as featured in publications including New American Painters, Studio Break, and Dovetail Magazine.

Currently, Dildilian is an Associate Professor at Arkansas State University, where she leads the Painting program and teaches painting, drawing, and design foundations. Her practice explores socio-economic structures, American identity, and the nuances of motherhood. Through paintings, collages, and installations, she layers imagery drawn from photographs, magazines, video games, and appropriated sources to construct recursive, experimental spaces that blur and sharpen perception, engaging viewers in complex dialogues between image, memory, and meaning.

Artist Statement
As a working artist and visual researcher, I approach image-making as both inspiration and qualitative inquiry, employing painting, photography, drawing, collage, and installation to examine the socio-economic systems that shape daily life. The body of work presented in hikâye | story draws on Ottoman miniature painting and broader visual traditions of Türkiye as a lens for exploring Middle Eastern and Armenian diasporas, narrative structures, and the abstraction of natural forms in paintings. These miniature-inspired works embody complex histories of migration, cultural blending, and storytelling; qualities that resonate deeply with my Armenian heritage and its diasporic identity.

After receiving the Middle Eastern Studies Grant, I traveled to Istanbul, Türkiye. The creation process began with photographing, sketching, and studying illuminated manuscripts and miniature paintings at institutions such as Topkapı Palace and Istanbul University, while also training with master artists at Les Art Turcs in traditional miniature painting and paper marbling techniques. This research investigates how pattern, symmetry, and color function as visual forms of language, bridging historical craft and contemporary expression. Through this process, I aim to translate these traditional techniques into a modern context, extending the lineage of miniature painting into new conversations about belonging, memory, and global cultural identity.

The large hanging ink drawing, Still Grass under the Tower, is a sumi ink work on traditional Chinese mulberry paper. The scroll serves as a backdrop within the installation, echoing the Silk Road trade routes that stretched from Chang’an (modern-day Xi’an, China) to cities along the Mediterranean coast. The small textured paintings positioned atop the image act as static points on a map, marking connections across geography and time. Other works in the exhibition reinterpret elements of Turkish miniature painting and calligraphy, while small travel sketches hang on the wall as fragments of my journey, collecting texture and color studies from historical landmarks such as Hagia Sophia, Dolmabahçe Palace, the Basilica Cistern, and the Ephesus Archaeological Site.

The acrylic paintings draw on patterns from İznik tile designs and cloud imagery, reflecting the landscape influences of Persian miniature and Chinese scroll painting. By collecting and reinterpreting these forms with acrylic paint instead of the traditional opaque watercolor, I explore how images and ideas travel across cultures and time. These works experiment with material and process, demonstrating how traditional visual languages can transform into new narratives within a contemporary context.

Hikâye | story marks the beginning of an ongoing exploration into how traditions shift over time, capturing the lasting impact of history and the subtle ways cultural influences, like those transmitted along the Silk Road, continue to shape our visual and material worlds.