About me

Hello;

​This is Necati Çiftçi. My close friends call me Neco. I was born in  Karsiyaka, Turkey in the year of 1953. In fact, what matters to me is  that I was born in a town that is by the sea.

I can reach you by crossing seas however by the common language that is art, these distances do not matter anymore. ​

In my paintings, I never had the effort to be elusory or mysterious. I  also never painted paintings that could have been told with magical and  fancy words. As a matter of fact, I never wanted to let myself into any  trends. I drew, I painted and the others named it.

One day, on one exhibition’s invitation cards, a critic wrote a note  in which I was described as an expressionist, meaning to express the  feelings from the perspective of color and smudge.

I believe that paintings begin to live once they find their places on  the walls. They start living together with the ones that love them, in  exchange giving them joy of life.  For me, the most beautiful painting  is the one that can be hung from either of its sides. Even though it  might surprise the ones who see it, at home I sometimes hang the  paintings upside down. If you wake up in the morning and the painting  looks different and surprising to you, it means that the painting is  alive. ​

So far, I held nearly twenty exhibitions, have been honored with  mentions and awards however for me the medals do not matter at all. I  believe that what matters is to give medals to the souls.

​The most challenging this for me during these exhibitions is having  to explain the paintings to the audience. I was never able to tell  anyone about the mermaid that hides in each of my paintings.

In my paintings, I only use oil on canvas or cardboard; together with  oil crayon which I use for the effects while the oil is still wet. If  you ask my brushes, they are extremely big – like a standard oil color  brush. The hardest part is that I have to wash nearly 10 big brushes in  every 2 hours in warm water with olive oil soaps.

Work need to be done layer by layer, removing the excess oil by  rubbing technique. However, no matter what technique I use, if a mermaid  can’t be imagined, it’s all in vain.

​My passion for painting has never left me. Everyone told me how  lucky I am that I have a “hobby” and that I pass my time in pleasure, in  joy. However, the passion of painting indeed is a chain. A chain not in  your feet but in the mind and the heart; and it always lives with you.

Unlike many others, I never had the chance to go to the cinema, lie  under the sun for hours, look around with careless eyes. I have always  been a prisoner. I always looked-for color. I examined the infinity of  radius in a woman’s body. I got stuck in a flower, in a bug. I was  always an admirer. In a rough sea, it was as if I was that breaking  wave. I was even that helpless fish that lost itself into the dark blue.  I wondered why I got to understand and discover certain things so late.  Then in front of the canvas I understood that I was not late but I was  just beginning to describe myself. I was so helpless in front of each  beauty… I was so miserable while trying to imitate the colors of nature.  I was so tired while trying to draw. I then came to a realization that  the forces which I refused to believe in before, had started to reveal  to me. And I was only trying to imitate them.

I no longer gaze at anything anymore, I only watch. Sometimes I go  over the bounds in watching that maybe I disturb someone. I am very  lucky that I can see those things. If I am able to express them even a  little on canvas or paper, I am even luckier. ​For this reason, I am  living more than everyone but at the same time this consumption of  vision also consumes me. I am quickly spending the tolerance of the ones  around me. I wonder, am I wrong?

Before starting a painting ​I do not want to think anything but the  painting. The best is to get to the studio to paint. I sometimes even  run to the studio to get there as quick as possible. It feels as if  things are going to fly away from my mind. What a beautiful excitement  it is to prepare for it and to smell the paint. If the colors are  winking at you, it even gets harder to breathe. In this moment, the  external ends; there is not a voice, not a sound and the life stops. Now  that the mind has got loose of its chains.

Many years ago, I had visited a well-known painter in his studio.  Despite all insistence he refused to give a clue about his method.  However later on we became closer friends and one day he started  painting when I was near him. He had a big box next to him and inside  the box were hundreds of squeezed and crooked paint tubes. He was  picking tubes without even looking at what color he picked and he  continued painting not paying a slightest attention to the color. I was  shocked because at those times let alone not looking at the colors; I  was carefully reading each word that was written on the tubes. I thought  he was ridiculing me and I felt upset about this. Looking at today,  this is how I am working now. The colors no more need math codes to  decipher. A tube that is vague finds its place so well on the canvas  that I feel as happy as a child that finds the piece of a puzzle.

​In the second phase, a sense of heaviness and panic pours in. The  outer voices start to reach my ears. I start to hear the radio playing  and with my nerves on I go to shut it off, paint on my hands, resulting  with the change of the radio’s color that day. Pray that it is not you  who is calling me on the phone. In a five-minute break, I wish I could  smoke a cigarette. It is as if the panting in front of you is a red  cloth and you are the bull.

Then starts the third phase. You have no other chance but to win or  all the materials will be thrown away along with all the dreams. You  start again by telling yourself to calm down and in a certain moment; a  color, or a pattern lights up your fire once again. You make breathless  moves and see the end of the painting but you cannot reach it yet. This  motion is continuing like that all the time. Meanwhile the tubes that  fall on the floor get smashed and the floor is covered with colors which  also resembles as painting.

It is very beautiful to stand in front of the painting and gaze at it  but I wish someone can stand next to me for a second a save the  painting from my hands.

I wish a beautiful and colorful day to all painting lovers. Goodbye.

 MN.Çiftçi