Ali-Zülfikar

ALI ZÜLFIKAR | biography | exhibitions | art projects

• Born 1970(1971) in Yavuzeli / Turkey
• 1989-95 Studies at the Firat University in Elazig by Prof. Memduh Kuzey and Cemal Arslan
• Members of the © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018 • currently working as a freelance artist in Cologne Quote from Dr. Stephanie Eckhardt Ali Zülfikar was born in Turkey in 1971, he is a master. Not because of its numerous international exhibitions up to the USA, but mainly because of his portraits. These are masterpieces of this genre. The first view already let us think of of the masterpieces of Dürer and Leonardo. The traces in the faces are like storms that colors as a natural symphony. Zülfikar has chosen a difficult task to work with these kind of portraits. He developed a deep pictorial space on each face. Layer by layer, he works out the personality of the people trapped in the perspective and freely becoming simultaneously. So the portraits like arising out of itself. Clearly, this process is on the structural quality of his painting, which appears like a mysterious sphere. For example, his art depicting old people, the art of aging. The age of each person shows a distinguished face, tells of sadness, joy, anger, happiness and sorrow. Zülfikar reads in the faces, researched and analyzed them, gives us a view of their own future. Some portraits are genderless, it is hard to tell if it is a woman or a man. Ali Zülfikar seems to recognize the beauty of creation itself at the age of man. Thematically, it focuses on the people and creates a new image of him. It is characterized in the faces of the questions of life and the answer alike in: peace, silence, as it might only know the age. Sticking to age: In art, as in literature, the dignity of age is a subject to changes. Elderly people were highly valued in former times. In recent decades, however, the old were increasingly regarded as full members of our society. Ali Zülfikar fights in his portraits apparently also against death by despite all wrinkles he opposes the old vigorous facial muscles. We see in the portraits no age in loneliness and pain, but faithful, graceful or honorable people. The old man again is a royal personality of our society, and frail elderly people we should meet with reverence and respect. Here the art helps, as well as the medicine, us to understand the society better regarding the aging life, that is free from high pressure of meritocracy. Zülfikar knows why that detailed physiological delineation of the outer shape brings the internal form expressed by putting the muscles and skin texture in relation to the nature of man. So he manages an anatomical clarity and forcefulness dimensional as it is today accomplished by virtually no other artist. Consider "Kobane", "King of Smile" and "Shaman": We see the heads of older men in profile and district profile. They are characterized by skin and muscles, marked by white hair and white beard, many folds, depressions and wrinkles. The eyeball awake, on the other hand that wrinkled skin seems to be heavy as lead. The look of his old people seems to invite the viewer to a silent communication. Light and dark contrasting almost dramatically and the shadows in Zülfikars portraits overcome definitively the masked reality of a human being. This is the true power of masterful portraits. Less