They Call Me Witch
Artist & Works
Ayshe-Mira Yashin


Ayshe-Mira Yashin (b.2003) is an illustrator and visual artist based in London. Rooted in matriarchal storytelling, her practice conjures goddess archetypes from her ancestral regions, taking form in intricate linework drawings, narrative prints and hand-bound books, consistently rendered in earthy-brown tones. An ongoing thread of her practice involves engaging with militarised terrains through land-based rituals, working with the earth’s matter to create experimental ecological works which culminate in illustrative contributions to the Earth-Body Art genre pioneered by Ana Mendieta. She provides readings with her queer ecofeminist tarot deck, The Earth Mother Magic Tarot, at events across London including Tribe Incorporated (2025), Talking Textures (2024) and Lunarr Playgroundz (2023). Recent exhibitions include Burned House Horizon at Mimosa House, (London, 2025), This Home is My Own at Outsiders Gallery Dalston (London, 2025) and Manifestations: Views of the Otherworldly in Painting and Drawing at NiMac (Nicosia, 2024).


website:https://ayshemira.com/
ins: @ayshemira



Eastern Mediterranean Goddesses
 
 Dual-colour risograph prints on paper

0.9cm X 15cm X 12.2cm, 2023



Selected prints from a series of illustrations conceptualised as matriarchal archive of the earth-bound materialities of the Eastern Mediterranean region. Each goddess honours a distinctive aspect of the earthly realm, some incorporating ritualistic elements such as tütsü, a common ritual where olive leaves are burned to implore protection from nazar (evil eye). Olive, oak and mulberry trees are woven into the bodies of the goddesses, in dialogue with the Cypriot pagan belief that fairy-like spirits inhabit trees, and one can make wishes to them by tying strands of hair to the branches. These goddesses were conjured from months of drawing their stolen ancestors who are trapped behind glass in the colonial British Museum, some inspired in form by the Phoenician-Cypriot Bird-Faced Girl/Astarte, Palestinian Mother Goddess Asherah, and the Hittite Sun Goddess Arinna.