H. Avni ÖZTOPÇU

 
home/en   +   gallery    +  biography
 

 

Portre I, 1985 - 65 × 55 cm, oil on canvas — No. 6

 

What Carries the Painting?

From Constructed Space to Kalem Hesabı: The Changing Plastic Carriers in H. Avni Öztopçu’s Paintings, 1985–1999

 

Introduction

When H. Avni Öztopçu’s paintings from 1985 to 1999 are considered together, it becomes apparent that beneath forms and compositions that may initially appear quite different from one another lie structural inquiries that persist throughout the period. Mass, center, boundary, line, movement, color, motif, the single form, and the dual structure are not employed in the same way throughout these years. Each comes to the fore at a particular stage and subsequently gives way to another carrier.

For this reason, it is not sufficient to describe the change between 1985 and 1999 simply as a “change of style.” What takes place is, rather, a process in which the fundamental problem within the painting begins to be carried by different plastic means.

In this study, the term “plastic carrier” refers to the formal element that assumes a determining role in the organization of the work as a whole. At one point, mass may function as the carrier; at another, color, line, boundary, movement, or the relationship between two forms may assume the same role.

This approach makes it possible to read the works not as isolated dates but in relation to one another. Such a reading, however, does not assume that the artist designed the entire period from beginning to end. Rather, the works and their dates are compared retrospectively, and a map of transformation is constructed through the plastic characteristics they share and the ways in which those characteristics change.

The 1989 Kurgusal Mekân is of particular importance in this reading. It explicitly discusses certain concepts concerning the artist’s painting practice in his own language. The text is not used here as an explanation of the paintings that followed it; rather, it is treated as a source through which some of the plastic relationships observed in the paintings can be understood in relation to the artist’s own conceptual vocabulary. The 1989 work is documented by the Mimar Sinan University archive as a Sanatta Yeterlik thesis.

 

I. 1985–1988: From Mass to Motif

1. Mass and Light–Dark

In works such as Büyük Oylum and Portre 1, both dated 1985, the emergence of mass is a fundamental concern in the organization of the painting. Form is initially separated from the ground primarily through relationships of light and dark value.

At this stage, color is not yet an autonomous plane that carries the composition on its own. The encounter between light and dark values establishes the sense of volume and weight associated with mass. The first carrier, therefore, is mass together with the contrast of value.

Considered alongside the concept of space discussed in Kurgusal Mekân, this becomes more apparent. The space addressed by the artist is not merely a physical void in which objects are located. What becomes important is the relationship between the visibility of form and the field surrounding it. The 1989 text itself describes visibility, contrast, and the organization of line, color, and plane as central to the construction of the fictional space.

In the 1985–1986 group, this relationship is established primarily through the visibility of mass; in the years that follow, the same problem will continue through other means.

 

Yapraklar, 1987 - 85 × 106 cm, oil on canvas — No. 15

 

2. Leaves, Flower, and Column

The introduction of botanical elements into the paintings in works such as Yapraklar, T. Çiçeği, and Çiçekli Sütun, all dated 1987, marks an important change.

Rather than using the word “texture” as a general description of the surface, it is more accurate to focus, in terms corresponding to the artist’s own text, on motif, ornament, botanical abstraction, and the process of becoming a motif.

These elements drawn from nature are not transferred into the painting as nature in its entirety. A leaf, flower, or botanical form taken in fragments is reorganized within the internal structure of the painting. The element derived from nature therefore ceases to function simply as an object representing nature and gradually acquires the character of a conceptually constructed form.

These motifs also carry relationships of color value and saturation. As a result, what emerges on the surface is not merely ornamentation; the relationship between form and the surrounding field, the quality of color, and the dimensional movement of the surface are altered as well.

The light–dark relationship that carried mass in 1985–1986 begins, in 1987–1988, to expand through relationships between motif and color.

 

Çiçekli Sütun, 1987 - 120x97 cm, oil on canvas — No. 18

 

II. 1989–1990: Plane, Direction, and Edge

With Mavi Bölüm and Sarı Bölüm, both dated 1989, color ceases to be merely a means of making mass visible. Color begins to establish a plane in its own right.

Even the titles Mavi Bölüm and Sarı Bölüm clearly indicate this change: color is no longer a secondary quality of form but an element directly involved in the construction of the painting.

It would be insufficient to describe the relationship of color simply as a “contrast between blue and yellow.” In Kurgusal Mekân, color is considered in terms of hue, value, and saturation. The carrier function of color should therefore be understood through the relationship among these three dimensions.

During this period, contrast also develops into a relationship of direction. Vertical and horizontal orientations, the placement of colored areas, and the division of the surface begin to determine the spatial organization of the painting.

 

Speculative Space” exhibition of H. Avni Öztopçu, Osman Hamdi Hall,
Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul, 1989

 

Edge and Surface

One of the significant changes between 1989 and 1990 concerns the relationship between elements and the edge.

Rather than constructing form solely in the center of the surface, allowing forms to approach or rest against the edges makes the relationship with the frame visible. The edge is no longer simply the place where the painting ends. As form approaches the edge, it establishes a new relationship with the empty space surrounding the surface.

This can be read alongside the idea of a confrontation with the frame and an opening toward the air surrounding the surface found in Kurgusal Mekân. The original text places particular emphasis on the relation between visible forms and the space around them.

By 1990, the increasing prominence of ideas of plan, route, area, and placement is important for the transition toward the later Gezinti works. The purpose here is not to present military service as the cause of these paintings. Rather, it is possible to consider the artist’s encounters during the same period with plans, maps, directions, and organizational diagrams alongside the ways in which the paintings subsequently divide, direct, and relate different areas.

 

Gezi Mr.1, 1991 - 88 × 110 cm, oil on canvas — No. 38

 

III. 1991–1993: Circulation and Gezgin

After 1989, a distinct transformation becomes visible in the construction of the surface. The 1990 Gezi MR-1 presents a plastic organization different from the earlier vertical and enclosed conception of mass. Here the surface is constructed not around masses gathered around a single center, but through a directional arrangement formed by lines, intersecting planes, and areas of color. The divisional function assumed by color and line gives the surface a mapped and directional character.

With the 1991 Gezinti, another shift in the carrier underlying this structure takes place. Within the structure that had defined areas and directions in Gezi MR-1, movement itself now comes to the fore. Line and form are no longer merely elements that surround or support a particular center; they generate a movement that circulates across the surface.

This continues in Gezinti AL. and Gezinti AL. II in 1992. Here the center is partially dissolved. Instead of the whole painting being governed by a single mass, movement emerges between different areas of the surface. It is not sufficient to describe this simply as “dynamism.” What is more distinctive is that circulation itself becomes the carrier of the painting.

 

Bileşim, 1994 - 120 × 97 cm, oil on canvas — No. 94

 

From Gezinti to Gezgin

An important change emerges in 1993 with Gezgin.

In Gezinti, movement functions as an action circulating across the surface; in Gezgin, that movement acquires a formal existence of its own. The form gains its own boundary and becomes a more clearly defined mass against the ground.

The relationship between Gezinti and Gezgin can therefore be read not as the disappearance of movement but as the transformation of movement into an autonomous form.

It is important, however, to note that establishing such a relationship between the two works does not mean that the artist had already designed in 1991 the form that would emerge in 1993. The relationship is constructed retrospectively, through the plastic difference that becomes visible when the works are placed alongside one another.

 

 

85'li Merkez, 1994 - 100 × 70 cm, oil on canvas — No. 49

 

IV. 1994: The Reconstitution of the Center

In 1994, the center becomes prominent again in 85'li Merkez, Bileşim, and 85 Merkezli Kubbe (A).

The center that emerges in 1994, however, is not a simple repetition of the mass of 1985.

In 1985, mass was established primarily through relationships of light and dark value and through a sense of volume. In 1994, by contrast, the center appears within a more planar, sharper, and more fragmented structure.

It is therefore not appropriate to read 1994 as a simple return to 1985. It is more accurate to understand it as the reconstitution of an earlier problem through different plastic means.

Bileşim and Part–Whole

Bileşim is particularly important in this respect.

The individual forms remain distinguishable from one another. Each part retains its own boundary. Yet their coming together does not readily transform the whole into a single object.

The relationship between definiteness and indeterminacy, which the artist articulates in Kurgusal Mekân, provides an important key for reading this point:

Definiteness in the form, indeterminacy in the whole.

Individual forms are visible and distinguishable; yet their overall relationship does not produce a single, readily decipherable meaning. Rather than allowing the whole to be consumed at a glance, the painting directs the viewer toward seeing by adding one element to another.

This does not mean that the painting is indeterminate in the sense of being unclear. Its indeterminacy arises not from the invisibility of its forms but from the way clearly defined forms come together.

 

V. 1995–1996: Line, Boundary, and the Single

In 1995, line and boundary become prominent carriers in Beyaz Çizgi and Beyaz Sınır.

Beyaz Çizgi can be read as a line that crosses the principal axis of the composition and determines the direction of the mass.

In Beyaz Sınır, by contrast, the boundary establishes a field more directly. Here the line does not merely separate two things; by dividing the surface, it reorganizes the area surrounding the form.

The discussion of linear perception in Kurgusal Mekân becomes important at this point. Line allows objects to be distinguished from one another, making them more enduringly and clearly perceptible.

The carrier function of line in 1995 is therefore not merely geometric. It gives definiteness to form.

 

Tek Bt., 1996 - 100 × 70 cm, oil on canvas — No. 78

 

Tek

This becomes visible even in the title Tek Dğ. (1995).

“Tek” is not merely the title of the work. It also corresponds to the organization of the principal vertical mass on the canvas. As the ground recedes, a single dominant form gathers the surface around itself.

The 1996 Tek Bt. continues this organization. Yet as the surface becomes more restrained, “tek” acquires a more elementary plastic structure.

Thus, in 1995–1996, the carrier is the unity of the single mass and the linear boundary that gives it definition.

 

VI. 1996–1997: Center, Flower, and Sign

In works such as Merkez SG, Seçilmişler Sy, Çiçekli Merkez Sy, and Çiçekli Merkez Krz., all dated 1996, center and motif encounter one another again.

It would not be correct to speak here of a simple return of the botanical motifs of 1987. The motif now operates within a different compositional structure.

While the center retains its distinctness, the motifs behind or around it layer the surface. The relationship between the individual form and the field surrounding it therefore becomes more complex once again.

In 1997, with Kırık Hareket and particularly İşaretli Çiçekler, a new element comes to the fore: the sign.

The sign does not behave like an ornament added to the surface afterwards. Through its geometric direction and sharpness, it intervenes in the existing forms. The integrity of the “single” structure is thus interrupted by a direction coming from outside it.

While the definiteness of form is foregrounded in 1995–1996, in 1997 intervention is introduced into that definiteness.

 

Kuşatılmış Gezgin, 1998 - 100 × 150 cm, oil on canvas — No. 95

 

VII. 1998: From Boundary to Enclosure

In 1998, with Kırmızı Sınır, İşaretli Yaygın, Kuşatılmış Gezgin, and Bakış, the function of the boundary changes further.

In Kırmızı Sınır, the vertical red strips positioned along the edges are not merely framing devices. They become active elements that compress the inner field from both sides.

In İşaretli Yaygın, the vertical geometric sign becomes the principal carrier of the composition. A new layered relationship is established between the organic movement in the background and the geometric mass in the foreground.

Kuşatılmış Gezgin

Kuşatılmış Gezgin occupies a particular place in this period.

While Gezgin of 1993 appears as an autonomous form that has acquired its own boundary, in 1998 dark and complex lines, networks, and organic/geometric structures emerge around this form.

Here, the void is no longer merely a passive ground on which the form is situated. The surrounding structure restricts the form's field of movement.

The line Gezinti → Gezgin → Kuşatılmış Gezgin should therefore not be understood as a trilogy conceived by the artist in advance, but as a typological trajectory constructed retrospectively by the researcher in order to compare different functions of void and boundary.

The surface carried by circulation in 1991 becomes, in 1993, a form that acquires its own boundary; in 1998, that form becomes one compressed by its surrounding structures.

 

VIII. 1999: The Dual

The 1999 İkili represents an important point of change in the idea of a singular center that had persisted in different forms since 1985.

The composition is no longer organized around a single central mass. Instead, a relationship is established between two forms or two focal points.

This means more than simply “two forms.” The carrier is no longer the individual form itself but the relationship between forms.

In Bileşim (1994), the parts retain their independence while collectively establishing the whole. In İkili (1999), two principal focal points enter into a direct encounter.

The logic of “Tek” from 1995–1996 is therefore not eliminated but transformed into another structure: the individual form remains important, but it no longer carries the painting as a whole on its own.

 

IX. Matrix of Plastic Carriers, 1985–1999

Period	Principal Works	Plastic Carrier	Compositional Function
1985–1986	Büyük Oylum, Portre 1	Light–dark / mass	Separating mass from the ground and making it visible
1987–1988	Yapraklar, T. Çiçeği, Çiçekli Sütun	Motif / ornament / botanical abstraction	Transforming elements taken from nature into constructed forms
1989	Mavi Bölüm, Sarı Bölüm	Color / plane / direction	Making color a primary constituent of the surface
1990	Türk Sütunu OC 1 and works from the period	Placement / area / direction	Dividing the surface into distinct but related fields
1991–1992	Gezi MR-1, Gezinti, Gezinti AL.	Movement / circulation	Creating movement across the surface independent of a central structure
1993	Gezgin TR., Gezgin Gz.	Form / boundary	Transforming movement into an autonomous and enduring form
1994	85'li Merkez, Bileşim	Center / part–whole	Creating definiteness in the part and indeterminacy in the constructed whole
1995–1996	Beyaz Çizgi, Beyaz Sınır, Tek Dğ., Tek Bt.	Line / boundary / single	Giving definition to form and isolating the single mass
1997	Kırık Hareket, İşaretli Çiçekler	Sign / intervention	Introducing an external direction and interruption into the single structure
1998	İşaretli Yaygın, Kırmızı Sınır, Kuşatılmış Gezgin, Bakış	Enclosure / compressing boundary	Narrowing the field and intensifying the tension between form and its surroundings
1999	İkili	Dual encounter	Replacing the singular center with the relationship between two focal points

This table should not be understood as a classification that separates the periods into rigid boundaries. Rather, it is an interpretive tool showing which plastic element assumes greater carrying responsibility at a particular stage.

 

X. Constructed Space: Thinking Before and Alongside Painting

The 1989 Sanatta Yeterlik study Constructed Space is one of the most important primary sources to which we can turn when interpreting the paintings produced between 1985 and 1999.

However, an important methodological problem arises here. Applying all the concepts developed in the 1989 text directly to the later paintings could amount to using the artist’s earlier thinking to explain works that came afterward.

For this reason, the thesis should not be treated as the cause of the paintings, but rather as a document that reveals the artist’s own conceptual and plastic vocabulary.

Within this vocabulary, determinacy, indeterminacy, strangeness, and opposition occupy an important place.

In particular, the idea that “determinacy remains in the visibility of forms, while, when the work is viewed as a whole, there is an indeterminacy of meaning” provides a directly applicable framework for understanding certain characteristics of the paintings after 1994. This distinction is also explicitly present in the surviving text of Constructed Space.

From this perspective, opposition in Öztopçu’s painting is not limited to relationships such as light–dark, color, or vertical–horizontal.

A form may be clearly visible on its own; its boundary may be distinct; it may even be precisely differentiated geometrically. Yet the relationship among these forms as a whole may remain open to more than one interpretation.

Determinacy in the form and indeterminacy in the whole can coexist within the same painting.

For this reason, the increasing geometric precision of the later works does not mean that meaning becomes equally determinate.

 

XI. Color: Value, Hue, and Saturation

The transformation between 1985 and 1999 does not occur solely through changes in form. The role of color as a carrier also changes.

In the early period, the contrast between light and dark values is decisive in bringing the mass into visibility. In the following period, colored planes begin to establish compositional fields in their own right.

Within Constructed Space, color is considered in terms of hue, value, and saturation. This provides a more precise vocabulary for describing this transformation. The surviving thesis text likewise places visibility, its gradations, and the organization of plastic elements at the center of the discussion.

Thus, rather than saying simply that “the use of color increased,” it is more accurate to say that the function of color within the composition changed.

In 1985–1986, a light value makes the mass visible against a darker value. Later, the compositional function of value contrast is taken over by other relationships. Hue and saturation also begin to assume responsibility for the tension of the surface and its planar organization.

By 1998, when highly saturated colors such as red are used as boundaries and signs, color is no longer merely a quality of the surface; it has become a direct compositional force.

 

XII. Diaries: A Language Circulating Within the Same Period

The diaries kept between 1991 and 1998 should not be treated as explanations of the paintings, but as another layer of language used by the artist during the same period.

It is striking that words such as “day,” “time,” “visibility,” “singles,” “traveler,” “white line,” “center,” “road,” “boundary,” “interval,” and “front” recur in these texts.

For example, the diary entry dated 14 July 1991 contains expressions such as “kalem hesabı,” “day,” “in our homes,” and “in the same place”; in 1993, terms such as “visibility,” “white line,” and “dehumanized days” appear; in 1994, “85-centered,” “the fullness–emptiness of singleness,” and “white line”; in 1995, “travelers,” “singles,” and “line”; and in 1997–1998, terms such as “front,” “interval,” “traveler,” and “forms.”

The fact that these texts contain words that also occur in the titles or vocabulary of the paintings does not mean that the diaries explain the paintings.

What it does suggest is that a shared field of concepts was circulating between the two modes of production during the same period.

This distinction is important.

The presence of the words “white line” in a diary does not explain the meaning of a white line in a particular painting. Yet the fact that “line,” “single,” “traveler,” “center,” and “visibility” circulate together in the artist’s language during these same years points to the existence of a concurrent field of thought between painting and writing.

The diaries should therefore not be used here as psychological explanations or biographical keys, but as an evidence layer contemporaneous with the paintings.

 

XIII. Kalem Hesabı

Kalem Hesabı is particularly important in this context.

Here, the word “hesap” may be understood not merely as an expression related to writing, but as a way of looking back at previous production, keeping records, separating and ordering elements, and establishing new relationships among them.

Whereas Constructed Space primarily reveals how the problems of space and painting were being thought through, Kalem Hesabı turns toward the relationship between previous production and the present act of looking back at it.

The two texts therefore do not perform the same function.

One is important as a source concerning the formation of the conceptual and plastic problem; the other is important in terms of recording the production and reconsidering it retrospectively.

This distinction is also significant for understanding the tendencies toward naming, recording, and classification that become increasingly visible in the second half of the 1990s.

 

XIV. The Individual and the Period

The paintings produced between 1985 and 1999 should not be viewed merely as forms generated within the studio. The artist’s educational, professional, and everyday experiences also belong to the same period.

However, it would not be appropriate to treat these experiences as direct causes of the paintings.

Between 1980 and 1984, Öztopçu studied Art Education at Marmara University’s Atatürk Faculty of Education, followed by postgraduate education in painting at Mimar Sinan University. These educational experiences formed part of the intellectual and pedagogical environment surrounding his production in the second half of the 1980s. This chronology is independently corroborated by institutional and biographical records.

His practical encounter during military service with plans, maps, directions, spatial organization, and organizational diagrams also belongs to the experiences of this period.

The fact that this experience can be placed alongside the divisions of space, directions, routes, and forms of placement subsequently visible in the paintings is noteworthy. Yet rather than establishing a direct causal relationship, what is at issue is the gradual convergence, within the same field of personal experience, of different ways of organizing visual space.

This approach is particularly relevant to the transition between 1990 and 1991.

The space organized by a plan or map is not the same thing as the surface organized by forms in a painting. Yet the recurrence of problems such as direction, boundary, area, route, and placement in both domains creates a form of simultaneity that broadens the visual experience of the period.

The ders BELGELİĞİ project, established in 1995/96, belongs to a separate field that would later contribute to strengthening the relationship among documentation, recording, observation, and production. It should not be used as a direct explanation of the paintings of 1985–1999. It is relevant, however, to recognizing a broader continuity in Öztopçu’s practice: the practice of documenting and looking again.

 

XV. Gezinti, Gezgin, and Kuşatılmış Gezgin: A Retrospectively Constructed Line

When these three works are considered together, it becomes possible to trace the changing relationship between space and boundary from 1991 to 1998.

In Gezinti, the surface is an arena of movement.

In Gezgin, movement takes on form.

In Kuşatılmış Gezgin, the space surrounding the form ceases to be an open field that allows movement and becomes an environment that restricts it.

These three works, however, should not be understood as a narrative planned by the artist from beginning to end.

It is the retrospective perspective of the research that constructs a typological line between them. This line makes visible, in particular, the changing role of empty space:

field of circulation → surrounding space of the form → constraining environment.

This transformation also corresponds to the increasing activity of the boundary within the broader movement of the 1990s.

 

XVI. 1985–1999: The Shifting of Plastic Carriers

When the paintings of 1985–1999 are considered together, what emerges is not a linear stylistic development but a structure in which different carriers successively assume responsibility for the painting.

In 1985, mass is predominant.

In 1987, elements drawn from nature become motifs.

In 1989, color and plane assume a greater responsibility for constructing the surface.

In 1991, movement comes to the fore.

In 1993, movement becomes form and acquires its own boundary.

In 1994, the center is reconstructed, this time within a part–whole relationship.

In 1995–1996, line, boundary, and the single form establish formal definition.

In 1997, the sign intervenes from outside this defined structure.

In 1998, the boundary becomes enclosure.

And in 1999, the composition begins to be carried by the relationship between two focal points rather than by a single center.

The transformation between 1985 and 1999 can therefore be summarized as follows:

Mass → motif → plane → circulation → form → center → boundary → sign → enclosure → duality.

This sequence does not mean that each carrier disappears when the next one emerges. Earlier carriers remain present in later paintings, but their functions change.

The center does not disappear; it is reconstructed within another relationship.

The single form does not disappear; it assumes a different position within the dual structure.

The line does not remain merely a line; it becomes a boundary.

The boundary does not merely separate; it constrains.

Empty space is not merely a ground; it can first become a field of circulation, then a surrounding space, and eventually a space that exerts pressure.

 

Conclusion

H. Avni Öztopçu’s paintings from 1985 to 1999 can be read not as disconnected formal experiments, but as an extended plastic inquiry in which the carriers of the painting successively shift.

What remains constant throughout this inquiry is not a single form. What remains constant is the effort to reconstruct the relationship between form and ground, part and whole, what is determinate and what remains indeterminate, movement and boundary.

In 1985, this relationship becomes visible through mass and value. In 1987, motifs derived from nature are incorporated into the painting and transformed. In 1989, color and plane become constitutive elements in their own right. In 1991, the surface begins to move; in 1993, movement becomes form. In 1994, the center re-emerges, now operating within a part–whole relationship. In 1995–1996, line and boundary give form greater definition. In 1997, the sign intervenes in this defined structure. In 1998, the boundary becomes enclosure. In 1999, the single center gives way to the relationship between two focal points.

For this reason, the changing of plastic carriers is a more explanatory formulation for the 1985–1999 period than simply “a change of style.”

As a different element comes to the fore in each painting, the previous problem does not disappear completely. Mass leads into plane, plane into movement, movement into form, form into boundary, boundary into enclosure, and ultimately into a dual relationship.

Constructed Space provides an important source for understanding the conceptual vocabulary underlying this process. Kalem Hesabı presents another form of retrospective engagement with the production. The diaries record words and concepts circulating during the same years. None of these sources is, by itself, the “key” to the paintings. Taken together, however, they allow us to see how different layers of Öztopçu’s practice existed alongside one another within the same period.

Ultimately, what changes between 1985 and 1999 is not merely the appearance of the paintings.

What carries the painting changes.

And this change does not occur through the erasure of what came before, but through its reappearance in another function.

 

 

 

Research and Contribution Note

This study was prepared by Gökçe Eren.

The research is based primarily on H. Avni Öztopçu’s works, interviews with the artist, exhibition and artwork catalogues, the artist’s own writings, archival documents, and visual material from different periods. In particular, the interviews conducted by Gökçe Eren with H. Avni Öztopçu in 2026 constitute an important primary source for evaluating the artist’s working process and the relationships among works produced at different stages of his practice.

During the research and conceptual development of the study, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini were used as AI-assisted research and critical-analysis tools. They were used to compare documentary and visual material, explore possible relationships among works and periods, develop alternative interpretations, identify counter-examples, test hypotheses, and critically examine the developing text.

AI-generated information, interpretations, or suggestions were not treated as evidence in themselves. Where possible, relevant findings were checked against the works, the artist’s writings, interviews, catalogues, archival documents, and verifiable institutional sources. Responsibility for the research, the selection and interpretation of the material, the conclusions, and the final manuscript rests entirely with the author.

The AI tools used in this research are not authors or co-authors of the study.