THE COLOGNE CHE Drawing

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 The House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany Foundation acquired the work "Greta" by the artist Ali Zülfikar for the museum. In 2020, 2021 and 2022 he received three grants from the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and a studio funded by the city of Cologne. Ali Zülfikar's art works are admired by numerous art connoisseurs worldwide. So far, these have been shown in around 200 international solo and group exhibitions and museums. In 2018, Zülfikar got into trouble in the Stadthalle in Linz/Rhein with a critical work showing Turkish President Erdogan. At that time, the Turkish Consul General Sibel Müderrisoglu intervened, and the city of Linz initially caved in too. Only 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.