ABOUT ARGUN OKUMUŞOĞLU
Argun Okumuşoğlu was born in Istanbul in 1955. He graduated from the Painting Department at the State Academy of Fine Arts in 1982. He has held many solo exhibitions in Turkey. Okumuşoğlu currently continues his work in Istanbul. Argun Okumuşoğlu's metaphoric and fantastic paintings contain passionate lyricism as if he is ready to tell a tale. The poetic integration of light and color, line and plane, personality and atmosphere exhibits a vivid expressive attitude. His works, fed by spiritual power and the product of an unlimited dream, originate from Okumuşoğlu's own life experiences. When his own world begins to materialize on the canvas, a balanced composition is formed in which people, animals and objects are designed without any care with the strong colors and sharp lines he uses.
ARGUN OKUMUŞOĞLU - ALİ ARİF ERSEN
TWO FOR THE ROAD
Ali Arif Ersen, with his photographs that look around without blinking, make the invisible visible and freeze the viewer and with his metaphorical and fantastic paintings that capture a universal language by referring to the world art history and polyphony in our culture that touch these photographs, Argun Okumuşoğlu will be at Gallery G-art on May 6, 2008 with TWO FOR THE ROAD...
These two men of the same period, who were workshop friends at the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts, two artists who share common tastes... One of them is excited to surprise the audience by interpreting the vital details of cities that no one else can see. It emphasizes the importance of looking and seeing. The other, with strong colors and sharp lines, liberates the viewer and puts them into a fairy-tale world by telling what he wants in a childish, enthusiastic and lyrical way. These two artists, who achieve that humane aesthetic and produce pure and distilled works, not only share the same exhibition hall with this exhibition, they also share the same creation. The surprises and struggles that life has prepared for man are hidden behind the Two For The Road.
Ali Arif Ersen was born in Istanbul in 1958. He graduated from the painting and engraving workshops of the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts. In addition to his painting works, Ersen mainly focused on photography. Because photography was the way he chose to record the cities that excited him on his journeys and to interpret that city. His painting and photography works took place in both individual and collective exhibitions at home and abroad. Ersen's sense of style, which is a mixture of painting and photography techniques, has been published in a photo album that includes examples of his work in the USA, Argentina and Cuba; "Tres Americas". The special paintings of Tomris Uyar's long story "The Beautiful Writing Notebook" were also prepared by the artist. The "Sarajevo" exhibition followed the Tres Americas exhibition. After this exhibition that took place in Milli Reasürans Art Gallery in 2006, the "Tales series" was exhibited in the same gallery in 2007.
Argun Okumuşoğlu was born in 1955 in Istanbul. He graduated from Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts, Painting Department, Özdemir Altan Workshop in 1982. He has opened 17 personal exhibitions and participated in many group exhibitions. His last exhibition was held at the Oswaldo Guayasamin Art Gallery in Havana, the capital of Cuba, last year. Cuban art critic and curator Prof. Antonio Fernandez Seone describes Argun Okumuşoğlu's paintings as 'the poet of light, colours, lines, surfaces, characters and dramatic atmospheres' and says, "It contains new, erotic and exuberant expressionism, full of references to contemporary artists who played an important role in the art history of the last century." Argun Okumuşoğlu continues his painting and sculpture works in Istanbul.
