With the first days of the new year, the patterns of our daily lives and exhibitions have begun.
The Orhan Taylan exhibition, which also tells the journey of an intellectual, is the first meaningful surprise of 2025.
Orhan Taylan, whom we lost on November 4, 2023, was not only a master of painting, but also a painter, poster designer, ceramic and sculpture artist who descended from the glass mansion to the streets, among the people and social issues...
The exhibition, which will be open at Orhan Taylan Atölye between January 3-23, 2025, perhaps tells us more deeply about that artist, in order to share the production atmosphere of a workshop, that is, the artist, with those who visit the exhibition...
Moreover, Orhan Taylan lived a life that defined this depth to the end.
His story that started in Samsun was crowned with Robert College and Rome Fine Arts Faculty, and instead of choosing an elite life, an artist who lives with the philosophy of justice, freedom, sharing, and ‘Being us, not me’ has a journey that extends from the presidency of the Visual Artists Association to the founding membership of the Peace Association.
Starting with his mother Seniye Fenmen, the whole family has been involved in both visual arts and social formations.
The enlightenment culture of the family extends all the way back to Mithat Pasha.
So, has Orhan Taylan ever expressed these in the various environments he has been in while living these?
In many interviews with him, he never uses these life labels. He always focuses on art, the issues of painting or sculpture from the perspective of his own art.
In particular, he hides the voice of poetry in the patterns of his painting, then makes it visible while preserving the liveliness of his oil paintings that will reach generations, and an Orhan Taylan painting that we can call abstract-figurative emerges.
Abstracting the painting is also bringing together poetry with the canvas for the master artist.
However, Taylan should not be limited to just canvas.
He is also the designer of walls and giant posters.
His most famous design, which has become a household name for the masses, is the worker’s hands carrying the world in their palms.
It is 1976. DİSK will celebrate May 1st in Taksim. A phone call comes to Orhan Taylan’s workshop the evening of the day before: “We need a poster for tomorrow.” The poster, drawn in about an hour that night, is an important symbol in our country and wins first place in the poster competition organized by the WFTU (World Federation of Trade Unions) in 1978.
He does not boast about this either. A beautiful 10-day trip in Prague is a beautiful journey for him…
He always lives in huge workshops. He drinks his tea in front of the window. Home is a workshop, a workshop is a home for him, he does not like working in narrow spaces at all. He produces his own paints that resist time. In his own words, he thinks of being a painter who is free from time.
Painting is life.
Poetry is painting.
Poster is breath.
Painting is the poetry of life.
This exhibition is about the life of a master who had no beard, did not smoke a pipe, did not take part in expert witnesses, did not accept jury offers so as not to judge other artists, entrusted his paintings to people's walls instead of museums, did not participate in mixed exhibitions, lived in Asmalımescit, and spent his youth with decency and conversation at the tables of famous poets of the period...
We should not forget the works he produced together with the famous sculptor Kuzgun Acar during those turbulent years of the world. They were there and produced works at almost all the major social events of the period; however, neither photographing nor collecting occurred to them.
Because they formed their philosophy not on the mystery of creativity but on the functionality of art.
Orhan Taylan answered the question "How do you know when a painting is complete?" as "When the painter needs to put down the brush..."
There is always an unfinished painting in life…
Orhan Taylan’s exhibition awaits art lovers at Asmalmescit Sofyalı Street, until January 24th… In order to complete the last half-painting…
Author: H. AYHAN TİNİN
Source: https://www.diken.com.tr/resimdeki-siir-orhan-taylan-sergisi/