In every young artist\u2019s portfolio there\u2019s the clich\u00e9 \u201cI have been interested in visual arts since my childhood\u201d; in fact, this has an element of truth. But one should also consider the environment\u2019s influence in addition to the child\u2019s curiosity. The place where I grew up in Bulgaria was considerably small and in Turkish urbanization standards, it could even be referred to as remote. It had a total population of 50 thousand; yet it had three movie theaters, two theaters, a gallery with a majestic Neo-Baroque fa\u00e7ade and a rich collection, and the oldest city park in the Balkan Peninsula. Most importantly, there was this bookstore at the very center of the city that was a true treasury. Here you could find relatively more popular books including very high quality catalogs from world museums and French artists\u2019 monographs as well as very valuable things like facsimile editions of prints by D\u00fcrer or Rembrandt. I think they rearranged their shop window on a monthly basis. They did thematic arrangements like Dresden Gallery books, Picasso, Michelangelo or Tiziano. My first serious contact with art took place there, I guess. Starting from my elementary school years, the top of my gift list always included an art album. This was the zeitgeist of that period; people were proud of the Russian cars they bought with great difficulty as well as the richness of their home libraries. Then came the more determining things like still life paintings and busts made at the mid-school painting club, the selection of fine arts as my high-school department, and voil\u00e0, your future path has been drawn. I had very good professors; they were all Academy graduates, people who could draw well, paint well and knew art history very well. All high schools of fine arts in Bulgaria eventually aimed for the Academy. For instance, the painting department had only twelve annual posts with hundreds of high school graduates competing for them; the competition was unbelievable. Good skills in portrait, still life, figure or nude were not special gifts; they were standard training.<\/p>\n My family wisely avoided the 1989 \u201cimmigrant\u201d glut. I first finished high school, and when I couldn\u2019t enter the Academy despite my top position in the waiting list, I came to Istanbul to enquire about education opportunities; of course I fell in love with the Byzantine heritage. An essay about Byzantine art by Yves Bonnefoy was deeply influential on me. He compared its ecstatic but subtle beauty to a silver fountain gently flowing in the background. Hagia Sophia, Zeyrek, Kariye, the cisterns and walls blew my mind. I did long promenades in Topkap\u0131 and Edirnekap\u0131; at that time, everything was different and terrific there as well. For me, Turkey both had a dynamic and an \u201cauthentic\u201d spirit, i.e. the typical touristic viewpoint like that of Du Camp or Flaubert. On the other hand, to be honest, while I was considerably knowledgeable about Byzantium and its art, the Ottoman part was a black box for me. At the end of the day, my interest in Byzantium combined with Sinan\u2019s mosques and Mehmet Siyah Kalem, and thus the dice were rolled. I\u2019ve been to Bursa, but having seen the level of its faculty of education, department of painting, it became a must for me to study at the Mimar Sinan University.<\/p>\n In my opinion, art history is an area every artist must have in-depth knowledge of. But as there aren\u2019t decent museums in the country we live in, and as we learn everything from the books only, a sense of reality does not develop around it; it remains as a romantic illusion. To make up for my lack of knowledge in this area, I took history lessons at the \u00c9cole du Louvre for a year; right after class, you could actually see almost all the original works that you saw in the slides during the lecture. It\u2019s necessary to be able to feel a brush\u2019s movement, to discover a retouched chest, a semi-complete sky or a 19th-century artist with less recognition, to see everyone in the same place, important or not, and to build your mental sequences accordingly. It\u2019s only when you have this kind of opportunity that you can become friends with the artists, let alone know the art history. You both develop professionally and you build a different bond with painting and art, and this pushes you to reconsider certain things. I think we should use the categories that they made us memorize to place the right words on the right shelves only. Art is something timeless; it doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s classical, modern or contemporary. For instance, Bruegel can actually be painfully contemporary; the way he depicts children taken from their mothers, the shade of red in the blood flowing under the weight of the hanging swords, folks helplessly running here and there, and some people gorging at some table at the opposite corner while all this happens\u2026 Aren\u2019t these things that happen right before us, that we witness and experience already? We should both be able to pick something from this gigantic accumulation called \u201cclassical art\u201d and use it as we wish, or act as if it doesn\u2019t exist if that\u2019s what we want to do, just like what the painters of the historical avant-garde did. In this sense, you have actually made a good point; I have a special interest in Russian and Soviet painters, but this is not a simple nostalgia for the lifestyle of the former socialist block. I\u2019m lucky to be able to read Russian; this way I can access sources that have not been translated. The discourses, statements and lives of the avant-garde artists of that period involved such enormous failures and disappointments that, in comparison to them, today\u2019s artistic problems seem like children\u2019s play. In fact, most of them paid the heaviest of prices; they went lost within the turmoil of that epoch. For instance, Mayakovsky committed suicide, while Harms died of starvation. These people have an all-encompassing agenda; they talk about building a new future, transforming the society through revolution, travelling in space, and even bringing the dead back to life. Such a level of radicalization makes one tremble. Of course, the tensions within this entire heritage provide me with a point of departure; this is why my works often feature the structures of failed utopias. I can\u2019t say they are that optimistic; but at least they don\u2019t have a completely hedonistic viewpoint either.<\/p>\n I approach graphic design as a source of income. Thanks to it, I can stay independent from the gallery system and I don\u2019t need to paint in accordance with \u201cthe market\u2019s pulse\u201d. On the other hand, illustration is as special a field to me as is drawing; they often overlap anyway. At times I illustrate poetry books and other times I illustrate posters. My latest project was a poster illustration for a theater play titled \u201cDivane A\u011fa\u00e7\u201d by Turgay Nar, a very old friend of mine, at the Ankara State Theater. Again, these days I\u2019m working on a \u201ccarnet de voyage\u201d about Istanbul and a children\u2019s book I want to leave to my little daughter. I hope I can realize the first printed editions of both next year.<\/p>\n Although there are many names that I admire and follow, the first ones coming to my mind include \u015eevket S\u00f6nmez, Erin\u00e7 Seymen, Ahmet Sar\u0131, G\u00fc\u00e7l\u00fc \u00d6ztekin, Ahmet Do\u011fu \u0130pek, Nur G\u00fcrel, Emin Mete Erdo\u011fan, Tayfun G\u00fclnar, Beg\u00fcm M\u00fctevellio\u011flu and G\u00f6rkem Dikel. I can also add artists like Mehmet G\u00fclery\u00fcz and Y\u00fcksel Arslan from previous generations that use paper and drawing very skillfully. There are too many names from the world; but I always have this interest in the genuinely experimental, new and different. By \u201cnew\u201d I don\u2019t mean that sweet and marketable point of intersection of those sets of emotions that are either \u201caccepted\u201d or \u201con the verge of acceptance\u201d by the audience; that\u2019s the advertisers\u2019 area. But my radar is always open for those radical experiences, new sensitivities and investigations that don\u2019t rely on Instagram\u2019s closed-circuit, infinite mirror effect. Unfortunately, on the other hand, drawing education in Turkey is rather mediocre. As educational institutions don\u2019t follow a curriculum in this regard, young people are left to their own devices. Prejudices like \u201cMarmara prefers the linear while Mimar Sinan likes the chiaro-scuro\u201d emerge that are completely based on myths. On top of this, we add the abundance of private universities and the situation becomes even more ridiculous. If the artist-to-be wants to create something on any kind of surface, he or she obviously must receive a good drawing education. Otherwise, he or she can\u2019t pass the exams, let alone become professional. They graduate anyway; but at the end of the day, the things they do immediately offend the eye and aren\u2019t taken seriously.<\/p>\n I became part of Art50.net as a result of their invitation. Online platforms obviously bring you visibility. In terms of PR, they bring about considerable improvements in search engines and your name begins to appear in more places. But most importantly, they open up a new platform of expression. I find Art50.net\u2019s attitude successful and consistent in this regard.<\/p>\n In terms of exhibition, except for my participation in a group show at the Artist fair in November, I have no plans for Turkey for the next six months. But for the spring and the summer of next year, we are planning a group exhibition featuring three artists that will tour three cities in Bulgaria. It will involve alternative presentation techniques like drawings of several meters, gel prints and LED installations; I hope that one day we have the chance to exhibit them in Istanbul as well.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"Co\u015fkun](\"https:\/\/art50.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Djochkoun-Sami_Blood-Tension-2015-ink-on-paper-70-x-100-cm-1024x717-1024x717.jpg\")
<\/a>How did you come from Bulgaria to Turkey?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
I think your works contain several references to art history. I almost feel like you made the Renaissance geniuses clash with the 20th-century Russian Avantgarde artists. What would you like to say about this? What are your sources of knowledge and inspiration?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"Co\u015fkun](\"https:\/\/art50.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Djochkoun-Sami_Archmemory-II-2015-bistre-on-paper-39-x-54-cm-1024x740-1024x740.jpg\")
You\u2019re an artist who also does illustrations and graphic design works. In your opinion, what is the nature of the relationship between your paintings and the works in these other two areas?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The artists you admire and follow, both in Turkey and abroad? And your impressions on the attitude that contemporary artists\u2019 in our country have towards drawing?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"Co\u015fkun](\"https:\/\/art50.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Djochkoun-Sami_Geist-2016-ink-on-paper-100x151cm-1024x679.jpg\")
How did your paths cross with Art50.net? What kind of contributions do you think online platforms have for the artists?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Your upcoming projects in the near future?<\/strong><\/h4>\n