Filiz Berk DOĞUTÜRK: Basın [Dergi-Gazete]

SANAT DÜNYAMIZ

YAPI KREDİ KÜLTÜR YAYINI YIL 14, SAYI 39, YAZ 89

Enis BATUR'un yazısı

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Cumhuriyet Kültür

8 Eylül 1993

Azmi Karaveli'nin yazısı

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evrensel kültür

ekim '94

Korkut Tankuter'in yazısı

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HABITAT SCENE

• Habitat boss defends value of conference

• East Turkistan's tragedy on the NGO agenda

• Full agenda for the world's NGOs

• Turkish children present their bulletins to Habitat
• "Best Practices": Poland
"We will pull it off.We have to"
• Urban terrorizm looms as future horror
• Filiz Berk Doguturk -- Turkey's painting prodigy
• Water Crisis Threatens World's Cities
• There are 100 Million Homeless in World
• "Worst" Practice Awards go to Tokyo and Kobe officials

Filiz Berk Doguturk –- Turkey's painting prodigy
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By Brian Johnson / Turkish Daily News

ISTANBUL- Born in 1981, Filiz Berk Doguturk has been drawing designs on paper and filling canvasses since the age of one. The press clipping headlines tracking her artistic accomplishments over the years read like extracts from a record book -- "Four year old Filiz Fopens her second painting exhibition"... "At age six, she opens her fourth showing"... "13 years old, 13th exhibit!". The current display of almost fifty oil paintings at the yapi Kredi Bank's Sisli branch -- open tot he public Monday through Friday from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm until 19 June -- is Filiz’s sixteenth since opening her first exhibition at the age of four in 1985.

Held to coincide with Habitat II, the Sisli exhibition features a number of works representing the young artist's vision of contemporary society and environmental issues. Bearing such titles as "City and People", Man and Environment", "Migration", and "City Suburbs", the paintings appeal powerfully to the emotions, displaying brilliant colors and dynamic forms set in motion by the immediate, spontaneous rendering of the graphic elements on line, space and plane.

Lauded for years by those in the Istanbul art market, painters and gallery owners alike, Filiz’s works have been compared to those of such modern masters as Marc Chagall, Paul Lee and Jean Dubuffet. Yet, in spite of some stylistic resemblance to the paintings of these famous artists, her compositions, both in technique and vision, remain purely individualistic, representing a highly personal, subjective view of the world and nature.

Filiz’s exceptional abilities were first recognized by her father -- the sculptor and primary-school teacher Canip Doguturk -- who began buying his one-year-old daughter brushes, paints and paper after noticing that her drawings, executed entirely on her own initiative, exhibited greater artistic skill and talent than those rendered by the older children in her classes.

Canip Doguturk was not alone in highly estimating his daughter's potential. By the time she was ready to start her education, Filiz had already opened her first public exhibition. In 1988, she enrolled in the second class of the private Culture Primary School at the request of the institution's founder, Fahrettin Akinguc, and her career as a young painter with outstanding artistic ability and insight was launched.

Besides opening a series of personal showings over the years, Filiz has received numerous awards and prizes for her paintings. In 1989, she was given an achievement certificate for works displayed at a youth festival sponsored by the Istanbul municipality, and she won another prize in the same year for her contribution to a children's painting exhibition hosted by the Turkish Ministry of Culture.

Filiz’s compositions and designs have featured prominently in a number of publications, including a promotional children's book prepared by Turkish Airlines in 1990 and the children's magazine "Dogan Kardes Dergisi" in 1991. Two years ago, she was invited, as a young artist of renown, to visit Germany by the mayor of the municipality of Siegen.

In spite of its obvious benefits -- awards, press coverage and trips abroad -- growing up famous has not always been easy, as Filiz herself attested in a 1993 interview. Living up to the expectations of her peers -- who frequently reminded her in school art classes "You're a famous painter, so you must paint a good picture" -- has been much more difficult than winning praise in the local and international art community. Once, after handing in a simple composition in black and red for an assignment to paint a fire, Filiz’s classmates, whose pictures featured fire engines, flaming infernos and people fleeing in panic, asked incredulously, "Is that a fire? It doesn't look like one!"

Intense peer criticism also followed the appearance of Filiz’s work on the cover of "Dogan Kardes Dergisi". The magazine was flooded with indignant letters from youthful art connoisseurs, one of whom stated matter-of-factly, "My little brother could have painted a better picture than that!"

Although the work of that unknown painter still awaits discovery, it must be very good indeed -- to display qualities and skills superior to the caliber of Chagall, Dubuffet and Klee!

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Cumhuriyet Kültür

30 Mayıs 1996

Ahu ANTMEN'in yazısı