Guliz Gurel

Currently living in London, I am originally from Istanbul. I have been trained both as an artist (Mimar Sinan University, Fine Arts, Painting) but also as a scientist (PhD, Yale University). I am interested in exploring the nature using brushes, colours, textures or forms, or pipettes and microscopes!

I have spent most of my adult life away, in colder and darker climates, and hence cultivated a longing for the Mediterranean, my home. My work tries to capture the mood, the sunshine, the warmth, the relaxed attitude of the people, the slowness of time in Mediterranean. My main subjects are not only the people, but the nature and the context that surrounds them and, unknowingly, shapes them and changes them: a beach, a sunflower, palm trees and the contagious stillness of the sea... I am also interested in exploring how manmade materials contrast with nature as they transform the contemporary context in which people experience the nature and the climate. I use oil paint on large canvases and like to express the beauty, freedom and fluidity of nature with big and relaxed gestures in opposition to more solid forms defining the rigidity of the manmade.

2009 PhD, Yale University, Biophysical Chemistry, New Haven, USA

2002-2003 Fine Arts (Painting), Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul, Turkey

2011 Spring Show, Yale University, New Haven, USA

2010 Spring Show, Yale University, New Haven, USA

2009 Time, Creative Arts Workshop, New Haven, USA

2008 Spring Works, Creative Arts Workshop, New Haven, USA

2004 Summer Show, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey