Onur Gülfidan's drawings and paintings do not depict the everyday life, as we know it. His characters and the spatio-temporal framework he creates are fictions in relentless contradiction with reality. In his elaborately assembled compositions he examines human nature, the current social and political conditions and our connection with popular culture in an ironic manner. His technique is a combination of influences such as cinema, comics, animation and digital games that have shaped his visual perception since the 80's and a classical art education. Although the moments that the artist interprets seem innocent and childish, there is always a subtle critique of the morally and culturally disrupted social structure of today's world.
Onur Gülfidan (1974, İstanbul) received his bachelor’s degree in painting from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in 2000 and his MFA in Graphic Design and Painting at the same institution. Gülfidan opened his first solo exhibition at artSümer in 2009. Selected group exhibitions include Brain Fog, .artSümer, Istanbul (2022); Offline Viewing Room, artSümer, Istanbul (2021); UNTITLED, .artSümer, Istanbul (2020); First Round (curated by Hakan Çarmıklı), Galata Greek Primary School, Istanbul (2018); Figure Out, Art Sawa, Dubai (2012); Realism Now, (curated by Marcus Graf), Plato Sanat (2012); If Nature is Heaven, The City is Hell, Cer Modern, Ankara (2011). He lives and works in Istanbul.
