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BIOGRAPHY
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The Travelers
(detail)
After a sleepless night, I thought that I might try to find out precisely why I hadn't been accepted at the fine arts institute. What did I have to lose? Professor Nesat Gunal, a member of the jury, agreed to speak with me a week later. He remembered "The Travelers" and invited me to his home in the chic Etiler district of Istanbul. After hours of discussion, I succeeded in convincing him that the painting was the fruit of my thoughts and artistic sensitivity not the result of coincidence, a lucky shot which he thought was probably the case considering my age. He was won over, but the jury's decision was irreversible! He, however, offered to allow me to participate in his studio courses with live models and permitted access to the academy library which stopped short of allowing me to take books home. He did n't want the responsibility of acting as guarantor

1974-Istanbul
Lodgings, the academy cafeteria and scholarships remained out of reach
  I had to leave my brother's house on foot at six in the morning in order to arrive on time for classes at the academy at nine-thirty. I had to cross the whole city to get to FINDIKLI. Every time I passed the main entrance of the academy, I felt like crying. The injustice of denying me entry as a fully recognized student made me feel poor in my soul. In time, this long wald became a part of my studies. On the way to school, I filled my notebooks with sketches and ideas and at the academy, I worked from the models in the studio and in the library I studied  Anatomy, perspective and the big masters. I also became interested in the Vienna school of "fantastic realism". I carefully studied Hausner, Fuchs, Lemden, Brauer and Hutter. The following year, my status still unchanged, I began the sculpture studio. My interest in anatomy earned me the title "Mr. Anatomy" with the librarians who saw me plowing through every available volume on the subject. The advantage of my situation was, notably, that I had no reason to fear bad grades and therefore could do just about whatever I liked; an impossibility for the regular students of the academy, who paid dearly, from this point of view, for all the advantages they enjoyed in terms of comfortable housing and regular meals. My defeat condemned me to the path of solitude and self-reliance and things were better this way in the end.