Ahmet Oran

Turkish-born artist Ahmet Oran’s vibrant abstract works embody calmness. Inspired by the backgrounding of Classical paintings, Oran’s paintings make aesthetic references to the avant-garde out of which the abstract movement sprang. His interest in the American Abstract began while studying in Istanbul under Adnan Çoker and developed when he later studied painting, stained glass, and graphics with Carl Unger in Vienna. Oran, whose work has been exhibited at the Istanbul Modern and Lentos Art Museum, aims to transport viewers away from the concerns of everyday life to focus on the timelessness of his work, as visualized in an untitled composition from 2011. Rejecting the brush, Oran creates his surfaces by scraping paint onto paper or canvas in layers using spatulas of varying widths, or sometimes even twigs. Stains, patches, and cracks are thus considered a part of his process, characteristic of the organic substance of paint.