He graduated from Gazi Education Institute Painting Department between 1962-65 and studied at Paris State Fine Arts Academy (école nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts) between 1974-78, where he went with a scholarship from the Ministry of National Education. After completing his master's degree in the sociology of art at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in 1978, he entered Dokuz Eylül University Buca Education Faculty Painting Teaching Department in the same year (İzmir) as a faculty member, and continued his duty at the university until 1998. The artist worked as a faculty member at the Faculty of Art and Design at Yaşar University (İzmir) until 2017 and retired. Umur Türker continues his life and art works in Izmir.

Reflecting social events, the complexity of male-female relations, individual introversion and resentment through the figures he paints on his canvases, Türker works on a romantic and emotionally charged fiction. A sense of loneliness and sadness is felt in the compositions, which consist of the use of several figures together.

KOZA

Inspiring Stories

We talked with Umur Türker about his life adventure from Ankara to Paris and then to İzmir, his teaching years, the current Turkish art education system and the works he continues to produce rapidly.