Deniz Elmas Özçelik

Who is Deniz Elmas Özçelik? (1987-Giresun)

Deniz Elmas Özçelik was born in Giresun in 1987. After completing her secondary and high school education, she completed her undergraduate studies in the Department of Painting at Süleyman Demirel University’s Faculty of Fine Arts in 2012. Since 2014, she has been pursuing a master’s degree in Art Education at Marmara University’s Institute of Educational Sciences. From 2015 to 2017, she worked as a lecturer in the Turkish Language Teaching Department at Marmara University’s Atatürk Faculty of Education. Since 2014, she has served as the Head of the Painting Department/Art Teacher at Time Fine Arts School.

Elmas held her first solo exhibition in 2014, participating in numerous competitive and group exhibitions, and has had the opportunity to showcase her work in Ankara, Isparta, Antalya, Izmir, Denizli, Eskişehir, and Istanbul. The artist, who won first place in the province and district in the “Turkey-Pakistan Relations” painting competition in 1999, participated as an artist in the 10th International Workshop at the Art Suites Gallery in Muğla in 2014, as an art assistant in the International Art Workshop of the Eskişehir Turkish World Capital of Culture Agency in 2013, and as an artist in the 2nd International Izmir Art Biennial in 2013. She continues to work in his studio in Istanbul.

Art Perspective;

“Color, Landscape, and Thinking with Intuition”

For the artist, nature is not merely an image; it is the reflection of an emotion, a memory, an inner voice. When painting a landscape, she conveys what she feels rather than what she sees. Every form, every tone has a response within her. Although her paintings begin with observation, they are guided by intuition. She often doesn’t know what to do at first. She listens to her brush, to the colors, to the surface. She feelings guide her; emotion, not thought, takes precedence.

Color is her language. She turns inward with blue, calms with green, and revels in yellow. Colors speak to her, and through them, the artist pours her inner self into the painting. She isn’t content with simply representing reality. She seeks to transform it, to recreate it with layers of meaning. Sometimes abstract, sometimes formal, but always seeking a sincere expression. She establishes a one-on-one relationship with the materials she works with: paper, canvas, hardboard… She has a different dialogue with each. She works quickly and intuitively with acrylic; with oil paints, she works more deeply and layeredly. Painting is, for her, an inner testimony. What she has produced over the years is a testament to her relationship with time and himself. Every period, every painting, is a trace of the artist’s transformation. Her art is instinctive. She doesn’t seek perfection. The more layered, the more fragile, the more real it is. That’s why he values the soul more than the form.