1970 TO PRESENT

Browse the comprehensive catalog of all paintings produced by Nafi Çil

PAINTINGS ARCHIVE

"TO CREATE A WORK OF ART IS TO CREATE A WORLD"

A life story embracing this principle

BIOGRAPHY

A GLIMPSE INTO ÇİL'S WORLD

Explore selected works currently available from the artist's studio

SELECTED WORKS

ARCHITECT AND ARTIST:

NAFİ ÇİL

This website is designed to highlight the works of architect and artist Nafi Çil in both fields. Having signed over 150 architectural projects, Nafi Çil has also produced more than 750 paintings.

While the architectural archive of this highly prolific artist is being prepared for the website, we welcome you with his complete collection of paintings and unique artistic world, accessible via the links on this platform.

Nafi Çil’s artistic journey, spanning from the 1970s to the present, is too deep and vast to be contained within the walls of a single studio. With over 100 works held in corporate and private collections, many paintings of various dimensions remain in the artist's studio. Each of these works is an evolving entity that began at a point in time—sometimes revisited years later—transforming alongside the artist’s own life.

"I was a painter before I became an architect."

With this sentence, Nafi Çil describes not only his profession but his worldview. In his practice, the precision of architecture and the intuition of painting stand side by side. For him, painting is less a mode of expression and more a state of being that emerges patiently over time.

His talent for painting found direction during his middle school years as a student of the painter Sadık Renkler; though he chose architectural education as a more secure career path, he could not leave painting, nor could painting leave him.

His prolific and original architecture maintains a compelling dialogue with the freedom of his artistic world, just as his paintings do with the geometry of architecture.

NAFİ ÇİL’S
LAYERED VISUAL LANGUAGE

Nafi Çil’s paintings carry an experimentalism and a bold relationship with material that may not be immediately apparent. His choices of color, form, and theme, along with the fluid transitions he establishes between the figurative and the abstract, define the character of his work. Layered surfaces, an experimental approach to material, and dense textures become increasingly visible as the viewer draws closer.

In his productions, Çil works on paper or sometimes directly on plywood; he combines methods such as oil painting, incising, and blotting with newsprint. He uses the material not merely as a substrate, but as an active element that constructs the meaning of the painting.

A PERSONAL AESTHETIC FORMED BY MATERIAL, SURFACE, TEXTURE, AND TRACES

SELECTION OF ARTWORKS

A GLIMPSE INTO ÇİL’S WORLD

Apart from the Paintings Archive, this section is designed as a modern showcase featuring works currently available for purchase and is updated regularly. Browse the full collection in the Works Available in the Studio section and contact art@naficil.com for acquisitions.