The Sky
Beech Wood
115 x 40 x 20 cm
2026
When I saw the Artemis of Ephesus in the museum, I stood before her and looked at her for a long time. I was there, facing her confident presence and gaze. The gentle smile on her face made me feel she understood me. It was from that confident gaze that this work was born. She seemed to ask me to carry the story on by looking toward the sky, and this piece emerged. Variations of this posture exist in many cultures.
I feel it is an inheritance from the Anatolian Artemis…
Untroubled, serene, and free of worldly concern. As if to say, ‘The sky is our only boundary. The sky is yours; the sky belongs to everyone’… In that moment, the sky within us opened before us. — Ayhan Tomak
Ayhan Tomak carved this figure from the confident stance he took in for a long time before the Artemis of Ephesus in the museum. The arms are open to either side, the face turned to the sky. The figure neither summons anything nor bids anyone farewell; it stands untroubled, serene, and free of worldly concern. A heritage from the ancient Artemis of Anatolia — thousands of years ago, someone on these very lands looked up at the sky with the same confidence. Here the sky is not a boundary. It is an open expanse no one can possess and everyone shares: the sky is yours; the sky belongs to everyone. It speaks silently, too, with the Artemis mirror that closes the exhibition — one carries the goddess’s stance, the other her gaze. Between the two lies that serene sky within us.