Art Critics

“Paintings of Asım İŞLER”

"It is so hard to read about his paintings, because your participation must be creative as well. İŞLER's paintings are bounded to modernism with their main veins. With the modernist belief that leaves a mark on the half century, Asım İŞLER never resigned the transformative power of social and scientific improvement. In every stage of his art, he protected his personality against the existence of increasing tension element and tried to protect the historical elements, this can also be taken as the expression of political relations that he put against conformism."

“Asım İşler's Engravings”

"Asım İşler is a unique master of engraving. He truly commands all the techniques of this art. His drawing is admirable in its excellence. He uses color, the burin, and acid with remarkable innovation. I had the opportunity many times to watch him produce prints on the hand press from the zinc plate he prepared. I observed how he deliberately made adjustments on a plate and how he guided the press with extraordinary mastery in order to achieve the result he desired. like all great engravers, Asım also makes the prints of his plates himself. Also, press is a working tool that he dominates like needle end and brush. Asım İŞLER is a determined artist, who expresses his personal thoughts strongly about world and human conditions. Asım İŞLER knows associating the inspiration and discipline. This is a sign of his talent and mastermind."

“A Determined Resistance”

"Asım İŞLER is an artist, who questions the possibilities of the tools in his hand, and externalizes the comfort of the ones in his hand with his conscious. He was never eager to a trouble-free aesthetics. He is an artist, who knows that his word can be historical, not natural."

“Asım İŞLER”

"Asım İŞLER was after new breakthroughs with a great enthusiasm in expression of himself in painting and gravure. Landscapes, figures and metaphysic items in his works are mostly inspired from tangible elements and being interpreted with deep sensitiveness and with a very personal style under a baroque form. “However, the limited frame of gravure was insufficient in expressing his rich competence. It can be said that, Asım İŞLER overcame restrictive obstacles and realized the painting issue with large scaled and colorful canvases. Theses Works carry the emphasis of a colorful universe created by the lightened circulations in the figures. There is always an engraver behind the “PAINTER”. There are no clear contours, no mixture in the integrity of colours, but there is a third dimension formed with the gathering of pictorial elements in side by side and overlap positions, and this evokes the study of gravure in gradual layers. Naturally, other people can see different reflections and perspectives of the expressions in Asım İŞLER paintings. But no one can be indifferent about the associations of the paintings and gravures. These are like the character of the artist and they are combined to each other in every situation. His exhaustless searches are meritorious, and his works gained my admiration."

“An Exhibition by Asım İŞLER”

"Asım İŞLER seems to bring together an abstractionistic organization with experience perceived at an expresssive level. The figurative formations observed in his previous paintings do not exist any more. Yet, each of the compositions shares some values and criteria with the others. İŞLER's paintings thus display a very clear compositional liveliness that consciously keeps away from any kind of decorative defect."

“Passages of Chaotic Order”

"When you step into Asım İşler's studio in Beyoğlu, you immediately realize that you are face-to-face with an artist who produces prolifically, yet never falls into the trap of repeating himself or his art. With his experimental and inquisitive nature, he lives art as a passion. The large canvases and engravings that fill the studio, reflecting different periods of the artist, invite you into a journey through a chaotic world built on color, line, and movement—an endless path where, from time to time, you may even delight in losing your way. On the canvases of Asım İşler, a painter who identifies art with 'a journey to infinity,' you experience the pleasure of advancing through woven labyrinths. His works, in which line, movement, and color are melted into one another on the basis of a rhythmic-organic relationship and brought into a plastic structure, open themselves in his new exhibition for the interpretation of art lovers. They exemplify an artistic approach that turns its back on compromise with the status quo, that pursues universal reality, and that can only be sustained through love and passion—offering hints of the new creations Asım İşler will leave from today into tomorrow."

“Asım İŞLER: A Powerful Voice in Abstract Expressionism”

"ASIM ISLER is one – or perhaps the first – of those artists who have remained faithful to the spirit of action painting in Turkey. He never finds relief in chaos or ambiguity. There is never a sign of timidness or hesitation in his magnificent gestures. On the contrary, both the gestures and the colors are well-defined and legible. If Abstract Expressionism is an asset for Turkish Painting, ISLER’s name rises over one of the pillars holding up this asset."

“Article for Kahraman”

"The last works of Asım İŞLER, are open tunnels that soak up us, but in the areas that we traversed, the magic of the road which is full of surprising beauties can distort our way. You can get lost in the boundaries of these paintings which are made with act, passion and with heart. These paintings are distilling the life. The paintings of Asım İŞLER are pushing me to desire and vital resistance. They are direct and sincere. This volition, dream and anxiety are the commitment of the artist as a spirit and body. These are striker and liberal paintings."

“Abstraction of Meaning in Asım İşler’s Paintings”

"There is no doubt that the improvisional approach we see in action painting is also manifest in Asım İşler's work. Yet, as this approach envisages a discovery of one's own capabilities through his own experiences, ready-made models can not serve as homes to depart from. Although abstractivism has always been difficult, questioning its own values and comporting always a diminishing structuralism, Asım İşler has forever preferred to pioneer in his own path. This is why each and every work has been brand new yet as well, a continuation that makes every new work a part of a shared fictiousness."

"As a student of NESET GUNAL, I think ASIM İŞLER is the only artist who can spectate and reflect the contemporary world to his art."

“On the Art Philosophy of Asım İŞLER”

"If we were to outline the main features of Asım İşler's personality and art, the following could be said: he is a man of spirit. What does this mean? The 'body' (Körper), the 'mind' (Geist), the 'soul' (Seele), and ultimately the 'spirit' (Geist)—which necessitates a supra-sensory perception—were all gathered, accumulated, and internalized by him in Tirebolu, Istanbul, Paris, and once again Istanbul. From these places he gained impressions, turned toward improvisation, and throughout his life expressed all his experiences through abstraction and abstract compositions. What we express here are also the fundamental qualities of Asım İşler's identity as a creative artist, qualities that position him in a privileged place not only within the art of painting in Turkey, but also in the art of the world. Yet there is one essential point: such positioning can only be made by those viewers who themselves carry the traits possessed by the 'artist.' 'What manifests itself here is a particular type of artist, and he also awaits, even demands, a particular type of viewer.' For instance, a viewer—or indeed a society—that understands that a color is not only a matter of sight, but also of tasting, touching, and hearing, and moreover possesses the sensibility to feel this. For creative art is about engaging all the senses—both in practice and in theory. It was in accordance with this understanding that Asım İşler lived and realized his art."