
Ahsen Kucukcalik ART

About
"I usually start painting with an idea in my head. But as the painting proceeds, it takes the development as if the painting has its own free will, and along the way whispers its own desires to my ears or acts directly as it wishes. The outcome at the end will be something completely different from the initial though but it is more beautiful than I imagined . It tells me a story and the main feeling of this story passes to the viewers and heals something inside them." read the whole story
Ahsen Küçükçalık
After graduating from Bosphorus University, Business Administration branch she worked profesionaly in wellknown companies in their sectors as Commercial Union Insurance, Koleksiyon Furniture, Bilkont Trading. She quited her Sales & Marketing Manager position at Şahinler Group, European Free Zone Co. at 2019 to spare her time to painting studies. Although she has no academic training on art but she completed seven-stage realistic oil painting education of painter Neslihan Can workshop between years 2015 and 2016. In 2017 she attended a short term workshop of Mexican painter Omar Ortiz in Paris/ France. To share her good experience at Paris with Turkish artists she organized Omar Ortiz Workshop in Istanbul in year 2019. She also took basic and advanced photography trainings and began to shoot her own subjects which she is going to paint. This leads her to be interested in NFT & digital art studies. Her NFT artworks are on sale on OpenSea, variable and Foundation market places.
One of her short stories published in the book "Tomorrow was Valentine's Day" which has been released from Kırıntı publishing house in 2019..
AWARDS
1st BIRESKU Painting Competition 2016 "Special Jury Award"
EXHIBITIONS & FAIRS
"Splended" Group Exhibition / Hüsrev Kethüda Bath / Ortaköy - Istanbul - Türkiye / 2022
BAF Bodrum Art Fair / Herodotus Cultural Center / Bodrum - Muğla _ Turkey / 2022
World Art Dubai / Dubai World Trade Center / Dubai - UAE / 2022
IAAF Istanbul Art and Antique Fair / Lütfi Kırdar Exhibition Center / Harbiye - Istanbul / 2021
"BIRESKU" Group Exhibition / Zafer Gallery - Ankara / 2019
"The Alchemist" 1st Solo Exhibition / Maji Luxury Art Gallery & Event / Nişantaşı - Istanbul / 2019
"The Rise of Light" Group Exhibition / La Visione Gallery- Teşvikiye Istanbul / 2018
"Stone Record" Group Exhibition / NisArt Gallery - Teşvikiye Istanbul / 2018
"New Year" Group Exhibition / NisArt Gallery - Teşvikiye Istanbul / 2018
PRISON BREAK – A Real Life Story of an Artist
I remember that breathtaking moment as it happened yesterday, when I first stepped into Vatican Chapelle Sixtine and saw the Botticelli, Perugino, Signorelli, Rosselli, Michelangelo frescoes on the walls. It was a magical moment as if I entered somewhere from out of this World . I remember myself standing in bewilderment, looking at the paintings and the statues without a blink of eye for almost a couple of hours with an admiration, exitement and deep down a bit of jealousy as a young woman who wanted to study art as being a child always fond of making paintings and drawings but due to universe’s joke graduated from “Business Administration” and started to work in an insurance company.
Many years while working in different sectors as professional management levels with enthusiasm and pleasure, deep down I always remembered that moment’s exitement and heard the thin calling to make art but I couldn’t started except a couple of week trials. Because I continuesly was saying to myself “ who I am to paint as good as those painters and besides I don’t have an art study”. I call all those years as my “prisonment” years passed in depression, lack of self confidence, expression and creativity.
After so many years I listened the calling of my heart and started painting systematicaly and attended to an oil painting workshop of a very skilled painter every Saturday. First two years I just copied, meanwhile read a lot of books and attended courses related with self development, chinese astrology, feng-shui, photography, photoshop, dance, aikido. Later I realized such different interests that seemed to have nothing to do with each other represents precisely the versatility of a renaissance artist. One day in front of my new painting which I was struggiling for a couple of days but going no where asked with all of my heart, my own voice, my own expression. And asked the help of Leonarda Da Vinci. Yes you heard right. I asked the help of Leonardo Da Vinci. After a couple of hours passed when I looked at what I painted as if a magical stick touched to my hand it almost seem to be done by a different person. Tears burst from my eyes and thanked to god for letting me find my muse and let me feel his love and compassion and my real expression, my very personal inner voice.
My creation process is now a kind of channelling. I usually start painting with an idea in my mind. But as the painting proceeds, it takes the development as if the painting has its own free will, and along the way whispers its own desires to my ears or acts directly as it wishes. And I obey this. The outcome at the end is something completely different from the initial though I had in mind. But it is more beautiful than I imagined and it tells me a story. This process transforms, changes and heals something inside me. The main feeling of this story passes to the other viewers and heals something inside them.
I want to spread this love and compassion and beauty and the healing to the World with my paintings.
Let the love and compassion rule the world !
MANIFEST
I do not hold the belief that art must necessarily convey a social message or display an activist attitude. I don't want to understand how art glorifies the ugliness and legitimizes it with the expression "the aesthetics of the ugly". As an incurable optimist, I know that everything serves the good. Even though this optimism was a protection mechanism developed in order not to hear the pessimist side of myself deep inside, now I see it as a necessity to transform the pessimist to create the beautiful.
Our emotions create our thoughts, our thoughts create our words, and our words create our reality. By saying "How nice it would be to be in peace" instead of saying "No to war", we direct the focus to what is good and beautiful, not to what is bad and ugly. Therefore, I refuse to praise the activist stance, actions, social message, ugliness in art .
While our world and nature have created so much beauty, don't we inspire from those beauties ? Beauty and love are natural, but we can also create ugliness with free will. I am also against the principle of polarity. The legitimation of evil with the belief that as goodness and love increase, evil and fear increase. Existence is love, fear is the absence of love. It is our lovelessness that creates it. So, if you illuminate the fear within you with the light of love and embrace it, you will no longer need to create polarity.
The feeling of beauty is lightness. What makes you feel positive is beautiful.
That is why my art represents beauty, it is intuitive, the intuition comes from the source of love.
Ahsen Kucukcalik
30.03.2022