Bilal Akkaya

Born in 1964 in the Devrek district of Zonguldak, Bilal Akkaya went to primary and secondary school in Adapazarı in 1984. He received his first calligraphy lessons from the Calligrapher Ali Rüştü Oran in İskenderpaşa. The artist studied calligraphy for seven years; practiced thuluth, naskh and riq'ah calligraphy and obtained ijazah certification from Calligrapher Saim Özel, one of the imams of Süleymaniye Mosque. He went to Syria in 1985 to study Islamic sciences where he taught calligraphy. Bilal Akkaya received his undergraduate degree in business administration and has been working in the advertising sector and the art world since 1988. The artist brings a modern perspective to traditional calligraphy and creates different, original and innovative designs outside classical calligraphy practices.

Dimitar Hinkov

I was born and raised in an artists’ family. Being a grandson and a son of two of the Bulgarian most prominent artists, it was inevitable to be fascinated by the world of art.

I make brave art experiments with paintings’ bases, materials and techniques. I substitute the typical painting base, the canvas with non-typical materials, such as metal, cardboard, hand-made paper. Then I combined it with the materials’ effect of resin, lacquer, silicone, hand-made paper, auto paint and various structures. During the years I try to master and subdue the material through my experiments. I am intrigued by the colour itself and the various structure of the painting surface. I create a new vision of the painting, a new understanding of art piece.

I want to provoke the public’s imagination in interpreting my paintings. Everyone to find his own world, shapes and elements in paintings. The person to be reflected by the paintings’ surface and thus the surface becomes a mirror in which he sees himself transformed. My goal is to commit the public emotionally with my art – either hate it or love it but never being apathetic.

Fatoş Çelikel

Her education in Graphics Design in LCC marked the beginning of her professional career as she combined her interest and talent in painting with education and transferred all this knowledge to her professional life. She built this beginning on a solid ground through her painting studies with academicians. Some of her paintings have been offered to art-lovers in auctions.

She tried to create unimagined, unfelt and unseen ideas by means of vivid colors and dynamic strokes in her paintings and tried to communicate with her audience.

The nature is being expeditiously destroyed in today’s world. As an artist, she wanted to show her reaction and opinions against this devastation; this is how “The Image of Scream”, her personal exhibition, was created.

Tree is a symbol representing eternity in arts. It takes away the negative, cleans and purifies and always gives back the positive. So, tree is a wonder of nature, representing birth and death. For this reason, the artist selected the tree as the main theme of the exhibition, shaped it with a brand new stroke and treated it with a surrealist and humorous approach.

Through her art, she tried to direct people to contemplate more and to make them feel responsible and she put more emphasis on intellectual activity rather than visual satisfaction.

Nature:
“I breathe just like you, I grow, I make sounds, I move, I feel, I offer you abundance and I protect you. I can exist without you, you cannot exist without me. Protect me as I protect you…When you face this simple reality, existence will make sense for you.”

Nevin Çetin

Esra Bora

I completed my primary and secondary education at TED Ankara College. I attended Istanbul Technical University State Conservatory and graduated with a degree in Liberal Arts. My husband Bülent Bora and I were married while I was in university. We have a beloved daughter, named Sim. I worked diligently for a long time as a model, actress and a TV presenter. During the same period I traveled to various countries, using this chance to find beauty to fill my visual memory.

I first took up the art of illumination as a hobby, through my dear teacher Eda Şahan. I moved on to stylized works, and it has been fifteen beautiful years since then. I was quite thrilled by the prospect of meeting with you.

Through these years of support and training provided by my esteemed teacher, I came to understand the interaction between art and science, and the development of art that is intertwined with history. As I mentioned in my first exhibit “My Dreams”, I believe that nothing in life is a coincidence, only options laid out before us. With this belief, and as a true “Republican Woman” born on October 29th, it gives me great pleasure to reflect my feelings in the arts of calligraphy and illumination, and offer them to the audience.

With my special thanks to my teacher Eda Şahan and curator Yalçın Denizyılmaz.