Painter and poet Gürkan Coşkun, who used the name 'Komet', which also means 'comet', died at the age of 81 due to cancer.
Gürkan Coşkun (1941 – 22 September 2022, İstanbul)[1] or more widely known as Komet was a Turkish painter.
He after graduating Çorum High School, Gürkan Coşkun studied at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University (DGSA | İstanbul State Academy of Fine Arts) between the years 1960 and 1967) . He worked in the workshops of Halil Dikmen and Zeki Faik İzer. He reflected various human appearances in complex and crowded groups on the canvas with a fantastic orientation. The painter, who mostly used black color in his paintings of this period; He emphasized the theme of death and pain with red, pink and yellows.
In 1971, he went to Paris, the capital of France, on a state scholarship. He studied at Vincence University, Department of Plastic Arts. He opened his first exhibition in Rouen, France in 1974. He studied at Vincence University, Department of Plastic Arts. He opened his first exhibition in Rouen, France in 1974.
In Paris he studied pre-Renaissance Italian art, Pompeian painting and Italian Primitives; He started to produce works that are based on the mysterious world of the subconscious but that do not break with reality.
Since 1974, he regularly participated in Salon de Mai (May Hall) exhibitions. The artist, who studied pre-Renaissance Italian art, Pompeii paintings and Italian Primitives while in Paris, began to produce works that were based on the mysterious world of the subconscious but did not break with reality.
Continuing his life in Istanbul and Paris, the painter opened fifteen personal exhibitions in Turkey, nine in Paris, and one each in Vienna, Salzburg, Lausanne and Brussels. Komet also participated in many international exhibitions. His works are exhibited in museums such as the Lausanne Canton Museum, the Vienna Museum of Modern Arts, the Copenhagen Graphic Arts Museum, the Paris Museum of Modern Arts and Istanbul Modern.
Towards the middle of the 1970s, he started to create works that showed continuity with the meaning and psychological atmosphere of his old paintings. However, since these years, Western types replaced the villager and urbanite Turkish type, and the irregular crowded groups were replaced by single figures and double or triple figure groups. The theme of death and pain, which had an introverted meaning before, has turned into a consciously living expression in these works. Komet emphasizes both the figure and the event with sharp lines and colors, with the use of shocking stains and colors in his paintings, the main element of which is the figure and the event is fictionalized depending on this element. On the other hand, the setting in which the figure and the event are placed is much more romantic and the artist here has made the contrast even more clear by using a transparent painting technique and soft colors. He increased the effect of the painting with the paint spills he used deliberately from place to place.
So what does the "scene" of Komet tell us? What kind of a world are we invited to, especially in his latest works? In the exhibition, 'AH's floating in the shadows, those who feel 'Gittin Gideli', those who feel 'It Will Never End', and foggy and dark paintings, where crowded figures from different worlds gather, emerge as representations of the rich world. Komet also comes face to face with himself, adding new ones to the white, geometric canvases seen in the “Whites” exhibition opened in Dirimart in 2005. Thus, the artist's figurative paintings, which are another breaking point, are fictionalized together. In the exhibition, where the refractions complement each other, the relationship of empty spaces with figuration on the ground and the figures passing through the mind of the artist appear as expressions of thoughts.
She worked on comparative literature in his master's and doctoral education in France. Bayramoğlu-Coşkun focused especially on Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar and Orhan Pamuk in his literary studies.
She also has an interview in the study titled "Muslim Rome - The Near Future of the State of the Republic of Turkey" (Meydan Yay. 2012) compiled by Atılgan Bayar.
Zeynep Bayramoğlu-Coşkun was married to the painter-poet Gürkan Coşkun, known as Komet, but they had been living separately for a while.
Zeynep Bayramoğlu Works: İstifa (2004), Monsieur Karénine (2010), L’Amant Capitaliste (2012)
REVIEW by Prof. DR. Kiymet Giray
"Comet is different. He is a rebel painter who designs the dreams of his own world.
However, he also went to Paris to become a painter, having studied at the same schools as the artists of his time, and following the same paths. Komet (Gürkan Coşkun) joins the ranks of the artists who went to Paris in 1971 with the dream of reaching the capital of art. Paris is the city to which Fine Arts Academy students will be sent if they pass the scholarship exam. Artists who attend the competitions abroad or the auditions of the school, aiming to reinforce their painting education in museums and academies, have to follow this path. Komet also follows this path. He finds the resources to shape his style first at Vincennes University, then at the Paris Fine Arts College and the Gustave Singier Atelier.
However, the most important artist among the sources of his understanding of art is Max Ernst. The work that he was most influenced by is the work of this artist, "Europe After the Rain", which interprets the continent of Europe, which was bombed, burned, and collapsed into fossils, and thus the world, right after the Second World War. This composition, which consists of light from behind, fantastic creatures, surreal places, times and figures, determines the essential values of Komet's style.
The second and important center of inspiration in determining Komet's style is the "Panic Group" (Mouvement Panique). By joining this group, he will have the chance to closely follow Roland Topor and Alejandro Jodorowsky's perception and practices of fantastic theater and cinema. Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1965 play "Melodrama Sacramental" is full of fantastical phenomena that knew no bounds to the extent that it would astonish the Paris of its time. It is at this stage that he decides to make fantastic paintings.
In plays played with identities hidden by masks and fantastic fictions that leave the definitions of time and space empty, the stage designs and the fiction of the play are full of fantastic elements as much as the story. The works of the group, which organizes chaotic Happenings, begin to open new horizons in Komet's own dream world that manages his life. Imaginary creatures stage fantastical plays on the backlit stage. Just like in Komet's paintings.
While creating dreams and fantastic stories in his paintings, Komet starts from the natural formations of stained formations. His painting "Kentaur", which combines mythological stories with contemporary interpretations, is a Komet masterpiece with all these details and features.
As a theme, this painting represents the patterns of a deep Mesopotamian, Anatolian and Greek myth. Therefore, it determines Komet's admiration for the legends and mythologies of the ancient world. At the same time, the painting is an original composition in terms of plastic values.
Komet uses the "Kentaur" as a cross-section of culture, a symbol of civilization. "Centaurs" are the most interesting supernatural creatures. The mythological story of these half-human, half-horse creatures begins in Mesopotamia and takes shape in Anatolia and extends to the Greek civilization. They are horses with human form heads, chests, arms and sometimes front legs. They have manes and tails. They are wild, they eat meat, and they are fierce.
They appear for the first time in the Babylonian period. They appear on the cylindrical seals of the Assyrians in Central Mesopotamia. They have conical cones on their heads and sticks, bows and weapons in their hands. It appears as a monumental relief in a room in Ashurbanipal's palace in Nineveh.
Like some other representatives of his generation (Burhan Uygur, Mehmet Güleryüz, Utku Varlık, Cihat Aral, Nevhiz, Aka Gündüz Temur, Alaettin Aksoy, Oral Enuğur) of the new figure movement that emerged after 1960, he envisioned establishing a self-referential, affective and phantasy/mystical world in his paintings. .
From 1973 to 1981, he painted paintings dominated by Neo-Romantic, Neo-Expressionist and Post-Modernist narratives, respectively. After 1981, he established a completely independent narrative."
BOOKS
2004: Koşarak Geldim Çorabı Deldim | I Came Running, I Pierced the Sock – Memoir, Okuyan Us Yayınları
This book is absurd.
This book is funny.
This book is pathetic.
This book is cute.
With this book, Komet is smiling warmly to those who cannot forget the 60s and those who do not want to forget them. Everything that happened is as real as the manuscripts in the book, and it's unbelievably real. Istanbul, military service, love, separations, friendships, people, cinemas, birds. Komet does not draw them this time, he writes them.
2007: Olabilir Olabilir | Maybe Could Be – Poetry, Komşu Publication
2013: Komet Momet - Poetry, Everest Publication
Olsa da olmasa da
Baş aşağı duruyordu ovada
Içini göstermeden
Kendi imkânlarıyla
Açıkça söylenebilirse
Bir şey olmadığı için
Bir şey olmadığını anlamak için
Herhangi bir şeyi alıp düzeltmek için
Yoksa nasıl ilerleriz diye dizlerimizin üstünde
Sorabilmek için ilerde
Nasıl ilerleyelim diye
Görüyordum
Doğrusunu söylemek gerekirse
Hiçbir şey yapmamak
İçin Şiirin uçma imkânlarıyla
2017: Esas Mesele İdi Fiil
Başka bir şey keşfetseydik
Belki dünya daha başka olurdu
Belki de daha kötü olabilirdi
O halde tekerleği iyi ki keşfetmişiz
Yoksa kutuları tekerleklere bağlayıp tırrrr
Fırrrrr uzaklara gidemezdik hiç