Ahmet Oran

Ahmet Oran was born in 1957 in Çanakkale. In 1977, he started the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts, today known as the Mimar Sinan University Fine Arts Faculty, and continued with Adnan Çoker's workshop. He graduated in 1985. During his education, he went to Austria between 1980-1985 and worked in the disciplines of painting, stained glass and graphics in Carl Unger's workshop at the Academy of Applied Arts. He followed especially American Abstract Expressionist Artists during his student years.

After graduating from the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts, he went to Austria again for two years with Prof. Dr. He worked in Adolf Frohner's workshop. He had his first solo exhibition in 1987 in "Galerie Weihergut" in Salzburg.

Ahmet Oran states that he has not used brushes while painting for many years. He creates surfaces by scraping the paints that he applied in layers on paper or canvas with spatulas of various widths from 2 cm to 200 cm and with twigs. The artist says that his works do not develop accidentally, and that he designs the final version before starting the process. We also observe that he uses color skillfully in these "abstract" paintings.

The artist has opened many solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions in Austria and Turkey. His works have entered Lentos Kunst-Museum and the Istanbul Modern. In addition, a work of Oran was included in the book "Art in Austria" (Kunst aus Österreich) published by the German State and covering the years between 1896-1996.

Ahmet Oran lives and works in Istanbul and Vienna.