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BIOGRAPHY
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I didn't have the heart to go back to the old club, theatre of so many dashed hopes. I didn't even try to contact L. or any of the rest of the old crowd that frequented the club. It was time to forget all that and get started on a new life. I decided to contact a professor in a fine arts academy in Venice who spoke to me of a possible transfer to his school if I was enrolled in an academy with equivalent standards. It so happens that I had done just that in previous days after having spoken to Professor Wolfgang Hutter, head of the department of painting at the "Hocheschule fur Angewandte Kunst" in Vienna. After that I planned to go to Italy and request the transfer.I left my two pictures (Nu-11) and (N-12) in Prof. W. Hutter's workshop. During my registration at the Viennese academy, I was required to deposit a small sum for materials used in the studios. For that, I had to go to the academy's treasurer's office and stand in line with dozens of other new students. At the window, I presented my new student card and, at the request of the cashier, my shiny new Turkish passport. She says me to await a little. I sat on a bench. A few moments later, she returned, but not alone. Behind me, "Police" was shouted in my ear and as the frigid handcuffs were pinched my wrists I was told that I was under arrest. Nothing would ever surprise me again in Vienna! I was dragged down the hallowed halls of this institute of high culture of like a dog in chains. 1982 will remain the cursed year in my memory. I returned in the same year for the third time in prison.

   I decided that jail would be different this time. I was lucky to have a 500-page notebook on me, pencils, pens and money. Instead of counting the days, I went to work. Not since my days as a youngster in Tatvan had I worked with such efficiency and diligence. The more prison life became insufferable, the more I worked as drawing and writing became my sole reason for being, my only salvation from the cold embrace of those stone walls…the drawings that you see in "GALERY III" and many more belong to this period.
My NOTEBOOKS
 
GALERY III