Ahmet Güneştekin Artist
Ahmet Güneştekin (born December 22, 1966 in Batman, Turkey) is a visual artist, whose works span painting, conceptual art and constructions sculpture. For Ahmet Güneştekin, a self-taught artist, art is a passion which has driven him since his childhood. He left the town of Batman for Istanbul in 1991, but had to wait several years before he found his own style at the beginning of the 2000s. He then abandoned the figurative to launch himself into a “narrative abstraction”. This kind of production is loaded with the recollection of a vernacular art, the memory of motifs such as carpets, lamps, ottoman copperware in which geometry is the leading force.Güneştekin uses a unique technique with an individual method and precision. After establishing a complex web of black acrylic paint, he fills each of the small spaces with a layer of oil paint, ranging from the light to the dark. Then, using a sort of pen with a rubber tip, he engraves into the paint, and writes as a calligrapher would on a book. He writes on his paintings by removing material, a principle which has more in common with sculpture than painting.After the agreement he signed with the London based Marlborough Gallery – one of the world’s top five reputable galleries – in 2013, Ahmet Güneştekin made room for himself in the international art market. Marlborough’s first move was to open an exhibition in the same timeframe as the 55th Venice Biennial. When Massimiliano Gioni, listed Güneştekin’s ‟Momentum of Memory” exhibition among the ‟Top 10 exhibitions to see,” the media couldn’t remain indifferent. Güneştekin’s works appeared in high circulation Italian dailies such as Il Manifesto, La Repubblica, La Stampa. Naturally, his works drew the attention of the art circle. In November 2013, Marlborough Gallery opened its doors in New York to Güneştekin. After making a flamboyant introduction for Güneştekin with a solo exhibition, “Ahmet Güneştekin: Recent Paintings” between 26 November and 4 January 2014, Marlborough Gallery prepared an intensive program for 2014. The exhibitions that began in January with Arco Madrid was followed by the New York Armory Show, Art Breda, and Art Basel Hong Kong. Afterward Marlborough Monaco Gallery opened a solo exhibition by Ahmet Güneştekin from 18 September to 14 November. His works are on display at the Marlborough Galleries in Barcelona, Madrid, Monaco and New York at their permanent exhibition halls all the year round.Güneştekin’s works can be briefly described as the interpretation of the oral narratives, legends and mythology from Anatolian, Mesopotamian and Greek civilizations using free technique. He creates optical and vibrant works, with the solar disc as one of his occurring motifs. The figurative way of expression is present in all his oeuvres, even though in an abstract stylized way. In all his contemporaneous works, the characters, symbols and scenes are taken out of ancient times, and these characters are symbolic, woven in symbolic tales about the essential questions of mankind.