Poppies in the Wind

The Soul of the Artwork

Stand in a field of tall grass on a windy Aegean afternoon. You cannot see the poppies directly — only their petals, released from their stems and carried upward through the green, moving faster than the grass around them, already past you before you can quite fix on them. "Poppies in the Wind" is a painting of that experience — not the flower, but the moment it lets go.

In this work, artist Gamze Haberal made a decision of remarkable artistic maturity: to paint the poppies not as flowers, but as pure color in motion. The red petals scattered across the center of the shawl are not attached to stems or gathered into blooms — they are fragments, caught in transit, each one a small oval of coral-red placed with the spontaneous precision of an artist who knows exactly where the wind would carry it. Some cluster together as a gust concentrates them. Others drift alone toward the white center, growing smaller and more isolated as the current disperses. A few have settled along the bottom edge of the green, as if caught in the grass at the end of their journey.

The grass itself — the composition's true structural element — is painted in dense vertical strokes of emerald, forest green, olive, and teal, descending from the top edge and rising from the bottom in the same mirror composition used elsewhere in the collection, but here applied with a looser, more gestural hand. Individual strokes of navy and warm gold break the green monotony, suggesting the variety of a real mixed-grass meadow. The grass does not quite reach the center: the white silk between the two green banks is the field of air through which the petals move.

Every stroke of green, every red petal, was placed once by hand. This specific afternoon in this specific field exists only here.

The Luxury of Pure Silk

The vertical energy of the grass strokes — their sense of simultaneous density and individual movement — is entirely dependent on 100% pure 9-momme mulberry silk absorbing a loaded brush with exactly the right resistance. At this weight, each stroke holds its direction while softening at its edges, the green pigments bleeding slightly into one another to create the layered, atmospheric quality of real grass seen close-up. The red petals, applied at full saturation against the luminous white ground, achieve a vibrancy that appears almost backlit — the silk's own warmth amplifying the coral-red rather than simply carrying it. In motion — and this shawl, worn outdoors in any breeze, is always in motion — the grass appears to sway, and the petals appear to drift. The painting continues beyond its own edges.

Why This Artwork?

"Poppies in the Wind" is for the collector who understands that the most interesting subject is not the thing itself, but the force that moves it. This is not a painting of poppies. It is a painting of wind — registered in the behavior of petals, in the direction of grass, in the white space between them that is not empty but full of the movement that crosses it.

It is also the collection's most kinetic work: a shawl that changes with every step, every breeze, every shift of the fabric. No two wearings will produce the same arrangement of green, red, and white. The painting reorganizes itself endlessly.

The edges are finished with a fully hand-rolled hem, executed entirely by hand — the still, considered final act of a work made entirely of motion.

Bespoke Details for the Discerning Global Collector

• Product Code: GH 20

• Dimensions: 75 × 200 cm

• Material: 100% pure 9-momme mulberry silk

• Technique: Mirror-composition vertical grass brushwork with free-scatter petal painting; multi-tone green ground with coral-red accent field

• Palette: Emerald green, forest green, olive, teal, navy, coral-red, ivory white

• Finish: Hand-rolled hem — couture stitched entirely by hand

• Exclusivity: One original work. This specific wind, this specific scatter of petals, is unrepeatable

• Origin: Hand-painted in Bodrum & Istanbul, Turkey

• Care: Gentle hand wash in cold water with silk-specific detergent; air dry away from direct sunlight. Pigments are permanent and light-fast. Professional dry cleaning is also suitable.