"Untitled" Painting

Taylan Özgür Çalışkan.
Painter


He speaks in the quiet of an Istanbul studio, slowly sipping his coffee. His sentences arrive after long pauses, much like the spaces within his canvases. The first thing one notices is that he does not regard painting as a profession, but as a natural extension of his existence. He does not say, “I cannot live without painting”; rather, he suggests, “I feel incomplete where creativity is absent.” The distinction matters. For him, art is not a chosen occupation, but an inevitable language.

In his abstract paintings, he does not seek to direct the viewer toward a specific emotion. Neither joy nor sorrow, nor even a dramatic narrative, is his aim. What interests him most is the connection the viewer establishes with his or her own inner world. He believes less in the boundaries of meaning than in the silent communication that exists beyond them. Perhaps that is why his works do not demand explanation; they ask not merely to be looked at, but to be entered.

During our conversation, he repeatedly returns to the word *line*. Rather than layers, dense textures, or technical display, he defends the power of a clear line. To him, a line is the most direct trace of thought. It carries an honesty that simplifies complexity. The distinct contours in his paintings are therefore not only a visual preference, but also an intellectual position.

When describing his creative process, he avoids mystical language. As he faces an empty canvas, a colour appears first, then a form. Everything else develops around that initial intuition. Painting, for him, is less a carefully designed construction than an inner voice attentively heard. “It is like speaking,” he says; the only difference is that he uses colours and lines instead of words.

He does not romanticise the life of an artist. He openly admits that his faith weakens during periods when paintings do not sell. Yet he explains that what brings him back to the canvas after every fall is not financial necessity, but an inner calling. “If money were my priority, I would have chosen another profession,” he says, his voice becoming noticeably calmer. What compels him to continue is an unshakable feeling that he is meant to paint.

What is striking is that many of the works he values most were created immediately after such moments of collapse. He describes rushing back to the studio when belief suddenly returns, and how that emotional state passes directly onto the canvas.