On the production of works in different techniques with Ramazan Bayrakoğlu

I remember it was 2007. When I was studying at university in Istanbul, I used to spend my weekends visiting museums and galleries. One day, while visiting the Istanbul Modern Museum, I came across Ramazan Bayrakoğlu's penetrating "Fire" work. But what an encounter, I was almost caught. Art enthusiasts know, such great works can only be viewed from afar, of course, the effect will be different. While I was wondering if it was an oil painting from a few meters away, when I went to read the tag, I was also amazed when I saw that the work was made with auto paints and similar industrial paints. Its idea, design and construction phase is so challenging...

I have been living in Izmir since 2011. Our physical meeting with Ramazan Hoca will be in 2021. He doesn't talk everywhere, he didn't offend me. My admiration for his ideas, his eyes, and my interest in his works was so great that I found myself breathless in Ramazan Hoca's workshop with the support and help of my teacher Mehmet Kahyaoğlu. While he was at Dokuz Eylül University Fine Arts Faculty Painting Department, I listened with admiration to his teaching years, his perspective on art, his thoughts, his life, his production dynamic and his hard work. Best of all, I won your friendship.

Art is as complex as a human being at times. Sometimes it is explained, sometimes it cannot be explained, it is felt. I thought the same thing in Ramazan Hodja's conversation. As unique as our fingerprints are, Ramazan Bayrakoğlu's art also contains very original ideas in terms of the use of paint in different techniques and the subjects he chooses.

In this episode, we talked about his portrait series inspired by cinema, his works referring to nature in landscape technique, his admiration for photography, his photography direction, his daily habits, and most importantly, the roots of his interest in different materials. We had the chance to see his brand new works for the first time.