How long have you been working in this atelier? Can you say that there is a special connection in between your atelier and your works?

I have been in this atelier for about twenty years. Atelier is quite important for me since I realize my productions in the atelier. I bring everything (photos, paints, materials etc.) I collect from outside to here. All my working performance is happening in this atelier; therefore I try everything here.

There are times I work out of atelier. I have got notebooks and I draw outside. I have got another atelier in Yeldeğirmeni. That place is used more like storage and I mostly do sculptures over there. I usually paint over here. I want everything at my disposal all the time. I want to have plentiful materials. Not finding a colour or not having a canvas while I am painting, is a situation that shouldn't be happening.

Sometimes I don't work at all. I just come over here; watch movies and host my friends. This not only a place for me to work; but a place, where I breathe and  welcome my friends. This is an area, where I make music with my friends sometimes or eat, chat or party. Other than that, I produce a lot over here. I don't even go out so often lately. It is like a torture to go to the other side for exhibitions or for other things. Atelier is like a sanctuary for me. Also most of the things in my brains are here: like my books, my materials, the sources of nourishment that I created by myself.

Where do you get nourished from during the production of your artefacts? Does the form of your work move along some certain sketches or else do they develop by themselves?

I don't actually have one certain way of work. This atelier is an incredible experimental place. I try a lot of materials and different techniques here and therefore a lot of works of art is created in various different ways. Some of them progresses only from sketches and other from the photos I take; I work with collages in some of them and the others mingle with each other. In other words, sine I haven't painted in the same way for twenty years, they all got mingled and became all mixed up.

Frankly, I don't have a single method of work and I love it this way. Because, this situation provides me an area of unknown and that area excites me each time as I am re-starting. All of sudden, I can start working with a material that I don't know at all and can endure all the risks of that material.  A material can take me to a unfavourable place or can disappoint me; but it is a new experiment area for me.  Every so often, when everything is going as it should do, I change my material all of a sudden and ruin it. I move it to a different area.

We come across with sociological elements in your works. Do you think you get effected by the socio-cultural and political state of the society? 

Of course. My paintings are mingled with sociological flow even if it is not directly. They are related to everything living on this country and even beyond; they are related to a lot of events in the world. There was Hezbollah in Turkey for a period of time. Serious slaughters were being lived. My paintings at the time were really related to belief and how dangerous can believing be. It is the same today: all the things that we live, the oppression, the state we are in now, the way we breathe, the way we express our freedom do all effect my paintings. But there is also an inner reflection of this.

Most of the people know you through your paintings; yet you also have video and installation works. Does it please you to create in different disciplines by gathering different disciplines together?  Are we going to see you working on other disciplines in the future?

I have a graphic background and I tried a lot of disciplines. I tried a lot of things such as photography, print, paint, graphic, digital during my education. Multiple technical materials is something that relaxes and opens me.

Although my art is known mostly as painting, I have shot videos, done installations, collages - I try different mediums. This develops by itself: you don't think "now I am painting; I will do collage tomorrow".  I take pictures; make editing; collect the materials I produce. Even if I don't know what they are going to become, I move with my intuitions. These collections start to fall into their own places after a while.

Who are the artists that you follow?

There are so many of them. I have a big library formed out of books I collected from everywhere in the world. I get nourished from art history and art - i like coming across with artists. I even have got exhibitions related to this: "Çarpışma (Crash)" and "Labirent (Labyrinth)"

It is to see another artist as an artist; it a way to make a production again by setting off from the artefact of that artist. I am following a number of periodically changing names from Turkey and abroad. It can Richter for a period of time or Kiefer or Jasper Johns.

Let's talk about your Çarpışma (Crash) and Labirent (Labyrinth) exhibitions. Their exhibition formats are a bit different than what we are accustomed with. How did the idea for these two exhibitions, which follow each other up, emerge?

In fact, the idea of homage was something I had all the time. I learned this from the artists. Because I didn't have art history and art education. I had graphic education. There were a lot of pieces missing in the graphic education and it wasn't enough to complete them all. The artists learn a lot of things from other artists and works of art. The same happened with me.

There are not only painters and sculptors in this exhibition; but also people from the world of literature. 30 or 40 percent of my art passed with homages. The works of artists, whom I made homage to, are also involved in my book. By the way, I had a big trouble with the homage work ( I collaged two, even three artists within each other)I have done in the "Harem" series. It was told that I imitated in this work. I had comments such as "If you are doing the works of these artists, then why is it you who signs it?" These are interesting comments. This is not that kind of a method. An artist is always a source of inspiration for me.

What are your comments on the current art market?

Art market is moving along a path that I don't even know . I don't know if this can continue as it is. There are a lot of people, who put money down on this business and go onto the speculative path. There are buyers and sellers such as brokers, auctioneers, suppliers, collectors. The artists could have shared their productions with the collectors and could have made a connection other than purchase and sale. This connection is lost today; the reasons have changed. The collector profile now is not buying to an artefact to watch. Because, they have got other worries about the piece they purchase. I am not sure if the world of artist, the spirit in their artefacts interests the collectors.

Purchasing an artefact is actually like buying a flower or a pet. You have to look, be interested and love it. An artefact is also a live thing - you can't just buy and leave it somewhere in the house. The thought of buying, preserving and making money out of it in ten years time is quite wrong indeed. If you want an artefact to be valuable, you need to work and use your power for it.  Purchasing an artefact and leaving it on a side is not the attitude or the style of a real collector. 

Do you have a project that you are working on at the moment?

I just had an intense exhibition recently. I had an exhibition in London and it ended quite recently. I did a project on senility in that exhibition. My main subjects were the place of getting old in this system and the place it takes us. It was an exhibition that tamper what getting old is, not only as body, but as an idea as well. This was the work of two-three years.

When an exhibition is finished, then you start to drift from the idea. After internalizing an idea, working and moulding it, then you want to get  that idea out of your mind. Because you need to open up a space for other ideas. I don't have any new ideas that I am working on at the moment; yet there are some objects that I progress through my intuitions and it is far too early to talk on them. They will come into being in the upcoming years. I am on a trail period at the moment.

I have a solo exhibition, which I have almost completed the preparation period, in Hong Kong on September.  Actually, I am after some other kind of works. If I need to give a clue: going back to three dimensional ideas is at stake.  I have project on small sculptures. I am doing other atelier tests; trying to learn the technical parts. I have got things to solve. Frankly I am progressing through groping in this matter. When I come back to work after a long time research, I want my work to keep its own spontaneity.

Would you like to talk about the development period of your exhibition in London? How did this idea emerge?

In fact I don't normally produce for an exhibition. This was a subject that I have been working on. I have been observing on senility for a long time. I have been taking pictures and collecting them. I had so much data related to this in my life - i had old people in my family. Although I didn't do it willingly, I went to a hospital, where old people see as their last stop, for a while. I had chance to research and edit there. This is a very depressive subject that all of us wish to stay away. I have had works in my mind on this subject for a while.

I think the most important part of this exhibition is the teeth collection that I have been collecting for years. I had been collecting dentures from dentists all these years without knowing what to do with them. It was an object that I like. Finally I created something like a bell jar out of them. What you see over there are all custom trays from real people. When I told the gallerist my exhibition idea, the gallerist told me that I have been saying it for the last two years. So a project doesn't come our in a moment, but rather develop over the time. 

I wish to ask you about your thoughts on current fine arts education since you are involved in academic education. 

I am not an academician; I only teach extrinsically. This is a social duty for me. I like sharing what I know and learn things from the new generation. I never wanted to be in the academical formation; but I went to school on or half a day of a week for years. After Mimar Sinan and Yeditepe University, I am npe in the graphic department of Marmara University.

There is a need for a kind of a revolution in academics just as the need for a revolution in this country and governmental institutions. I think these places are quite closed circuit places. These places need to have a communication with other artists, countries, people and institutions. There are serious problems about education at the moment. A person, who is in his/her 3rd or 4th grade of the education, generally thinks that it is dispirited. They are unhappy from what they do or from the school. Yet the freedom area of this profession needs to widen. The academicians like us need to describe this. We take all the desires of the young ones have during academical education and we give an accumulation of knowledge in the shape of a capsule. The education is standardized, but the individuals are different from each other.  We need to understand those individuals and need to reach their souls one by one.