Devrim Erbil Click for Artist Information

Devrim Erbil

Devrim Erbil (1937-   )

He was born in Salihli in 1937. He studied at the Painting Department of Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts (now known as Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University) and was a student of Halil Dikmen and Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu. He conducted research and investigations in various countries. Devrim Erbil's paintings with a linear character, which started with nature/tree motifs in the 1960s, gradually reached a predominantly linear composition order reduced to the surface from a bird's eye view, some of which were also influenced by the composition orders of our miniature art. The objects we perceive and see in nature, in real life, with their limited dimensions, are reconstructed in the rhythmic structure of nature in Erbil, in pure lines or in a linear structuring. Towards the end of the 1960s, these forms of expression focused on the urban views of Istanbul. Later, in 1976, he painted "Anatolian Town", in 1977 "Anatolian Impressions" and "Istanbul" series of paintings, and after 1977, he created paintings on the subject of "birds", in which blue began to dominate, as well as city, human and nature views. Line is an element that has always existed in Devrim Erbil's art since the beginning. In these paintings of the artist, color, especially the color blue, comes to the fore as well as line; It is seen that he achieves a lively painting surface with free brush strokes, sometimes reaching the point of Stainism/Tachism. This state of mobility has become more mysterious and dynamic with vertical compositions. It is observed that he applied these composition schemes in the same and similar way in his carpets and original prints. The paintings of Devrim Erbil, who tried different techniques from painting to original printmaking and saw art in the holistic light of these experiences, reflecting the versions of a common composition form under the name of "Anatolian Variations", are exhibited at the Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu Workshop, as examples of a local sensitivity based on the surface texture. They are extensions of an activity that has already begun. Although Devrim Erbil maintained the same texture after the 1980s, he started a new era by focusing on images of Istanbul, flocks of birds and coastal impressions flickering under light effects. He uses abstractions from nature in some of his paintings. The artist, who is a faculty member at Doğuş University, lives in Istanbul.