Creative Conversations: Erol
Erol is a designer whose formal work across print, photography, and web captures human presence through stillness, driven by a need to distill the world's beauty into art.
Erol immediately became one of my favorite people when I met him in Paris over a group hang a little over a year ago. He’s one of those humorous people that just make it easy to be around. And when I saw the photography he was capturing during his travels and daily life, I became obsessed with the tonality of his work—thoughtful and sometimes almost delicate. He holds an affinity for the old and special pieces most people discard.
Who are you and how would you describe your creative work?
My name is Erol, and I’ve been a designer as soon as my parents bought our first PC in the 90s, and I started creating things on it. Since then, I have explored my craft through print, photography (film and digital), graphics, and the Web. My work tends to be formal and structured. My photography is often devoid of people, but always references a human presence left behind in the scene: in-between moments trapped in stillness. I capture and edit images into how i felt when I took the photo, as if it is a type of nostalgia, and a way of keeping memories.
What’s key moment would you say reflects your creative journey?
Each time I create an image or graphic, I’ll do something we all do: stare at it. I keep staring at it and tweaking it until I am satisfied. The key moment in my creative “journey” for that work is making sure the work feels finished and that I enjoy looking at it and don’t have anything else to change. When it’s finished, I am ready to let it go into the world as something I made.
When you were younger, what’s career did you think you’d have?
I wanted to be a surgeon, and still have a fascination with anatomy. In high school, I decided to take one art history class in between all my chemistry, biology, and anatomy classes, and I felt an ease and joy in creativity that I never felt before — I never looked back.
Are there moments when you wish you had a 9-5?
I do, because I work a full-time job at a “9–7,” so a 9–5 would be a welcome reprieve. I’ve always been privileged enough to have jobs that require creativity or allow me to utilize my skills like graphic design and photography, albeit in the requirements of a business. In between work, I try as much to leave time for work I create for myself.
What or who inspires you to keep going?
I keep going for myself. If no one was left around me, I would still be as prolific or inspired to create. It really is an internal fire. The beauty of the world overwhelms me and creation helps me grasp it and distill the joyful feeling of existing within all this beauty.
A friend of mine, author İnci Atrek, once told me the world needs to have my work in it. I lingered on that word “need.” We often don’t think of art as a need, but it is. What is the one thing dystopian futures or antagonistic alien planets always seem to lack in the mind of science fiction writers? Art. Sometimes I feel a moral obligation to continue creating and leaving nuggets of beauty wherever and for whomever I can. Art won’t save the world, but it will save our souls.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
This would be a long list, but all I would say is be the very best you can be at what you love. Ignore everything else.
If you could collaborate with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?
I can only select one person? I would collaborate with Martha Stewart. Well over a century ago, Ruskin said the home was a manifestation of the quality of a person’s soul, and I don’t think he was exaggerating. People who care profoundly of our intimate spaces like the home and how we use them fascinate me. I respect them deeply.
He is just the most delightful
Erol is such an extraordinary person and has an incredible eye for beauty and light. So happy to see him highlighted here.