Mustafa Hulusi
b. 1971, British
Born to Turkish Cypriot parents and raised in London, Mustafa Hulusi studied fine art and criticism at the Goldsmiths College and later photography at the Royal College of Art. His works received high praise early in his career for their ingenuity and were included in several well-respected collections at the heart of the international art market.
Mustafa Hulusi generally begins from “seeing” and creates diverse concepts from it. He takes a refreshingly witty and satirical approach to the visual fields we perceive and accept without question, then presents and shares his unique interpretation of them with the public. His paintings are characterized by the coexistence of figurative and abstract representations of the same subject. The hyperrealistic figurative elements achieve a consummate clarity and are displayed on one side to coexist with the sharp yet restrained eye-catching abstract elements that hold your attention on the other. These two works we see actually refer to one thing; Hulusi uses the actual objects we see with our eyes and the abstract images that are conjured up within us as we view them to communicate that there is but one “essence” of seeing.
Establishing a considerable presence in the international art market by his early forties, Mustafa Hulusi represented Cyprus at the 52nd Venice Biennale, profoundly inspiring art historians in attendance. His works were also housed in collections at the Saatchi Gallery, simmons&simmons, LVMH, Francois Pinault collection(France’s preeminent contemporary art collection), and other institutions with authority in the art world. Sir Norman Rosenthal (b. 1944), the art historian who discovered Gerhard Richter (b. 1932), Georg Baselitz (b. 1938), and yBa (Young British Artists), praised him as “one of the artists this generation needs” upon seeing Hulusi’s work at the Tate and Saatchi galleries.
Selected Works
