in fact, fahrelnissa zeid suffered from depression throughout her life.udio one day, the movement of a fly catch her eye. and then she kind of felt that this movement reflected life. i mean, it's a kind of inspiration for her. so, because all of these many different lines seem to interconnect and go away, and there's an almost random quality to it. but you're saying that on one level, the spark for that was seeing the random movements of a fly buzzing about the studio? yes, absolutely. she also inspired from different elements. like, you can see these mosaics, like from maybe byzantine or islamic art and architecture, the patterns from ottoman stained glass... with the kind of black leading in between? yes. tell me a little bit about her and thatjourney that comes, ultimately, into this. she was born in 1901 into a very aristocratic ottoman family, and she was one of the first turkish women to go to the art school. in 1928, she travelled to paris, where she studied with the cubist artists. so she was part of the international avant—garde movement, and she

fahrelnissa zeid is a centralfigure in the story of modern turkish art. dawn of the 20th century, she's only being truly appreciated now. yeah. pleasure to have you here. i'm meeting chief curator oyku ozsoy sagnak to talk me through this — zeid's mesmerising and explosive masterpiece of swirling red and yellow painted shards. the first thing is that sort of sens of it being almost all—encompassing. it feels like... yeah. ..you could go into it. it's almost like this sort of net that you could get caught up in. but when you sort of take a step back, the way it's been composed, it has these different zones. there's a yellow part with very, very intricate almost thorny parts to it on the left. and then, in the middle, there's this kind of... this void. yeah. this sort of black hole in the centre. yeah. yeah, absolutely. i know it's called my hell... yes. what's she referring to? in fact, fahrelnissa zeid suffered from depression throughout her life. and while sitting in her studio one day, the movement of a fly catch her eye. and then she kind of felt that