Biography

Nafi Çil was born in Kula in April 1939. When he was two years old, his family moved to İzmir, where he completed his primary, secondary, and high school education. After graduating from İzmir Atatürk High School in 1957, he earned an M.Arch degree from the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts (now Mimar Sinan University), School of Architecture in 1967. His painting education, which began during his middle school years under the guidance of painter Sadık Renkler continued during his years at the Istanbul Academy, where architecture and other art disciplines coexisted. He embraced the drawing talent that had been praised since his childhood and gained confidence in art. Particularly influential were the sculpture studies led by professor Şadi Çalık, one of the pioneers of contemporary sculpture in Turkey.

During his years in Istanbul, he was also guided by his uncle, Süleyman Velioğlu, a psychiatrist and painter who founded the Art-Based Diagnosis and Treatment Laboratory at Istanbul University Çapa Medical Faculty. Velioğlu’s theoretical approach, which focused on the relationship between human existence and artistic creativity, as well as their frequent discussions about art, shaped Çil’s perspective. Velioğlu’s belief that all artistic acts should interact with an intellectual background along with his practice of dividing the day between academic psychiatric studies and painting served as an example for Çil. Çil subsequently decided to dedicate serious time to his artistic pursuits. In 1967, he joined the Akatünvel art group that was founded by Velioğlu and Tangül and Tamer Akakıncı. They were later joined by Belma Artut, Ulu Sungu, and Güven Zeyrek. From that point on, he chose to pursue life as both an architect and a painter.

In 1969, he moved back to İzmir to work as the site architect for the construction of the Konak Social Security Institution (SSK) buildings. He began painting regularly at the same time that he ran his own architectural practice. When he moved to Üçkuyular with his wife, Özden Çil, in 1970, he converted one of the rooms into a studio. Later, from 1980 to 2005, he used part of his architecture office in Alsancak on 1402 Street as a painting studio, which led him to gradually increase his artistic output. This office also became a meeting point for a group of artists who gathered regularly to discuss their art works and the art scene. Since 2006, he has been working in his studios in the Köprü neighborhood of İzmir and Urla.

Nafi Çil has held 27 solo shows to date, starting with his first solo exhibition at the İzmir French Cultural Center from April 26 to May 4, 1971. He has also participated in 23 group exhibitions. In addition to private collections, his paintings can be found in the collections of the Ankara State Painting and Sculpture Museum, the Eskişehir Anadolu University Museum of Contemporary Arts, the Ege University Cultural Center, and the İş Bankası Painting and Sculpture Museum. Apart from various books in which he conveys his artistic perspective, his earlier works were analyzed in the book A New Understanding of Painting on the Basis of Art Ontology (1982) written by İsmail Tunalı.

Nafi Çil states that an early and significant influence in his architecture and painting experience came from the summers he spent in Kula. During his childhood and adolescence in Kula, he was deeply affected by the unique architectural environment of the Ottoman town, the experience of living in harmony with nature, and the dark-colored stone textures of the tall, uninterrupted courtyard walls of the houses. He considers the vibrant colors and geometric patterns of Kula carpets to be a foundational element of his color world. These influences manifest in his paintings not as literal depictions but as an abstract language internalized in the background.

Çil states that Kandinsky’s statement, “creating a work of art is creating a world,” serves as the foundational ontological-aesthetic principle he adheres to. In his paintings Çil seek to reveal the tragedy of the vast difference between human time and cosmic time, the searing awareness of one’s own mortality, and the tension between this awareness and the exhilaration of unique moments. He externalizes this tragedy and tension at times boldly within the realm of Eros or through petrified animal-human figures and sometimes through abstraction, usually in the contrasts of colors. Suspended between the figurative and the abstract, he finds his unique painting language in the timelessness of an archaic aesthetic