Adnan Varınca, 1918-2014

Adnan Varınca graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 1948, where he was a student of Léopold Lévy and Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu. In 1957 he went to Paris, where he continued to paint and exhibit until 1973.

Adnan Varınca’s work is reminiscent of Far Eastern masters who create a picture in a single, continual movement after having put themselves in an appropriate mental state. He draws on elements from his fertile inner world and his visual memory – perhaps simple objects, everyday landscapes or intimate interiors – and executes them with seeming effortlessness. Varınca transforms even the most mundane-looking fruits, flowers, scenes, and rooms into magical, jewel-like images. He focuses on real objects and rejects even the slightest hint of abstraction. Looking at Adnan Varınca’s works we sense that they are the deliberate productions of an artist who only fully experiences the joy of life and “finds himself” when he is painting.