Mustafa Ayaz Click for Artist Information

Mustafa Ayaz

MUSTAFA AYAZ (1938 -   )

Mustafa Ayaz, one of the leading names of contemporary Turkish painting, was born in 1938. Ayaz, whose interest in painting started at a young age, entered Erzurum Pulur Village Institute in 1953. The artist, who attracted the attention of his teachers with his painting talent, passed the Painting Seminar exams of Istanbul Çapa Primary Teacher School and graduated from Çapa Primary Teacher School in 1959. Ayaz, who studied at the Painting Department of Gazi Education Institute in 1960, was a student of Refik Fikir and Adnan Turani. After passing the assistant exam at Gazi Education Institute Painting Department in 1966, he worked as an art teacher at the same school until 1984 and retired in 1987.
 
In his early periods, Santçı made abstract-expressionist paintings with a smear approach based on thick paint paste and paint values. In the 1970s, he turned to a calligraphic approach, and in 1975 he began to paint paintings in which the female figure stands out. With the female figure that he usually places in the center of attention in his paintings and his own portrait around him, he ironically makes references to male-female relations, and on the other hand, he emphasizes the image of a flamboyant woman that adorns his dreams. At the same time, Ayaz has always cared about paint and painterly taste, whether in his abstract or figurative periods.

The artist, who continues his life and work in his workshop in Ankara, has opened more than sixty personal exhibitions in the country and won 19 awards. Hundreds of works of the artist, who has participated in group exhibitions and biennials in many countries abroad, are in foreign country collections, and thousands of works are in domestic collections.