Nedim Günsur (1924 – 1994) Click for Artist Information

Nedim Günsur

Nedim Günsur (1924 – 1994)

He was born in Ayvalık in 1924, and his family moved to Istanbul the year he was born. With his passion for painting starting at an early age, he studied at the Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu Workshop at the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts (now known as Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University). He participated in the establishment of the "Group of Ten". In 1948, he graduated from the Academy's Painting Department with first place. He went to Paris with a scholarship given by the French Government, and attended Leger and Lhote workshops as a spectator for four years. He had an impressionist style during his student years. Towards the 1950s, under the influence of the education he received in Paris, he turned towards the abstract, and later reached an expressionist expression in which naive elements came to the fore. Günsür, who initially had a hard time deciding what to do and which direction to go during his years in Paris and entered into different searches, will relax after his view of the world matures and will continue to follow the interests fed by his underlying human sensitivity again and without interruption until the end of his life. What he produced, from what he did during his student years to his last paintings, are like indicators of his CV and interests expressed in plastic language. Günsür internalized whatever he thought and felt, and visualized his life through the language of painting (line, light-dark, color, rhythm, stacking…). Childhood memories, dreams and hopes have also entered his paintings; the pain of absence, deprivation, poverty, separation, massacre, famine, massacre and war, what he has seen and witnessed firsthand. Because he aimed to be a witness of the society and age he lived in with what he produced. There is a direct connection between the environment in Günsür's works and the subject/theme discussed. He is a stylistic painter; He is not satisfied with what he knows, but he does not lose what he has found. He can and has brought new perspectives to the themes and subjects he has dealt with in the past in the following years, and has brought new perspectives to the subjects he tried and moved away from in the past, after trying other ways over time, with new works that get closer to those he tried in the past. Günsür, who prioritizes light and dark in some of his paintings, lines and texture in others, and the use of sometimes complementary and sometimes contrasting colors in some of his paintings, uses these plastic elements with great sincerity and mastery in almost every painting. As a result, when every subject it deals with is expressed in plastic language, it confronts the viewer with a recreated world, as in every real work of art. This world is a dreamy, realistic world that can be felt in almost every period and painting of Günsür. The artist, who was open to social life, sensitive to humanistic elements, had a personality and an original understanding of painting, passed away in Izmir in 1994. It was the most respected way of expressing himself. He paints his own thoughts, his own colors, his own immediate environment, his own lights and most importantly, his own stains. The world of objects he sees and perceives and human life have always maintained their validity as the constant subjects of his painting. The source of his paintings, which are based on his local impressions and observations, has always been taken from nature and life. He tried to emphasize the meaning behind the image rather than the image on the canvases. All of these are like a mirror of the artist's life, interests and loves. It has nothing to do with dreams other than reality. The paintings, which are the creations of Orhan Peker, are evidence of a superior talent and a contemporary stance, with their aesthetic values, within the short limits of a period of only thirty-two years of artistic production, called fifty-two years of life. The artist passed away in Istanbul in 1978.