“Being a painter is hard. I’m not saying being an artist, but being a painter is hard. Seeing and perceiving is hard. Painting is an entirely different practice. You have to paint for hours, for days, for a lifetime. You have to keep your hand steady while inhaling thinner and turpentine all night, struggling to stay sober. You have to paint 5-meter, 6-meter, 7-meter canvases without messing up. Recently, when I calculated it, I was surprised by the result.

Throughout my artistic career, I’ve worked hard. I’ve held 54 exhibitions, 3 of them at the AKM (Atatürk Cultural Center), and the others in major venues like Yapı Kredi and Galatasaray, as well as significant galleries. At these large venues, I exhibited an average of 70–100 paintings. Including the others, if we estimate an average of 40 paintings per exhibition, 40 multiplied by 54 (the number of exhibitions) equals 2,160 paintings. If each painting is, on average, 1 meter wide, placing them side by side would stretch 2,160 meters—2 kilometers and 160 meters. What does that mean? You calculate it. Enter from Taksim, exit at Tünel; enter Teşvikiye Mosque, exit at Şişli. You’d get tired walking that distance.

In my paintings, I tell short but long stories. Like documentaries, most of my works are connected to the life of their time, especially political issues.”