Ahmet Oran

Ahmet Oran's paintings open windows, they expose and bring the hidden to the surface. With a painterly gesture, Oran places the oil paint on his picture support and constructs an abstract painting, which he then: covers up! Another layer of paint is placed on this intrinsically painterly support and covers it almost completely, were it not for the traces that the artist places in the still damp veil in an act of spontaneous movement. With the help of brushes and squeegees, Ahmet Oran thus exposes the lower layers and allows a glimpse of the abstraction that was initially created. The scratching in leads to the final product of the painting. Here, the classical panel painting is turned into the opposite. It is not paint applied with a brush that creates a picture, but the removal of the oil paint that leads to completion. This last step is strongly reminiscent of graphic elements, since it is an unconscious direct drawing on a still wet painting surface.

The artist Ahmet Oran, born in Turkey in 1957, knows how to combine painting and drawing in his works. His technique is based on a clear mastery of the medium, for the pictures demand the perfect moment to reveal their traces. Too early: the veil laid over the abstract primer literally loses its power and flows into itself, too late: the drawn strokes no longer become free traces of drawing, the material dries and prevents any spontaneity.

This free gesture of carving in, strongly reminiscent of the informal of the post-war period, is reduced, as it were, on the basis of the recognisable grid. The grid structure forms an exciting counterpoint to chance, expression and also uncontrollability. For who knows what these traces of colour will eventually reveal.

Ahmet Oran has mastered the painting of abstraction in all its facets. Whereas in the past it was the layers of paint that he peeled off the canvas like bedclothes and left standing in seemingly tangled masses, now it is the revealed traces of previous layers. The play of layers and the associated overlapping is always a part of his art.

The works in the bechter kastowsky gallery were all created for the exhibition in 2021.