BALKAN NACİ İSLİMYELİ

He was born in Adapazarı in 1947. He studied painting for five years in the painting department, which he entered in 1967 by passing the applied talent exam of the İstanbul State School of Applied Fine Arts of the period, which is now Marmara University Fine Arts Faculty. He became an assistant in 1973, a year later at the school where he graduated as the top student. He went to Salzburg in 1975 to study lithography (stone printing) with the scholarship of the Austrian Government, which he won during his assistantship. Continuing his thesis studies when he returned home, the artist completed his master's degree in 1977 with the thesis titled "Fiction as a Visual Art Element." By going to Florence in 1980, this time with the scholarship of the Italian Government; he worked for two years at the Painting Department of the Florence Academy of Fine Arts. He returned home in 1982. The artist received the diploma of proficiency in art, which is equivalent to a doctorate, in 1983, and he became an associate professor in the painting department three years later.

He went to New York in 1989 and worked on contemporary arts. İslimyeli, who worked here in 1990 with the invitation of New York University Hagop Kevorkian Center for the Near East, continued his studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts in 1991 with a Fulbright scholarship. He studied at Trinity College in Hartford, USA, where he was invited as a guest artist. He also worked on printmaking at The Çamlıca House of Art in Çamlıca in 1991.

He became a professor at Marmara University in 1993. He worked for short periods of time in the places he visited with invitations from different countries. In addition to being an educator, İslimyeli writes art books, poems and stories, and is also interested in cinema. His poems and stories have been published in the magazines; Dost, Oluşum, Yazı, Gösteri, Argos, Kitaplık. The artist, who has directed painting studio under his own name at Marmara University; and more than 20 master's and doctoral theses, also worked as a faculty member at Işık University. İslimyeli passed away in 2022.