Orhan Umut and his paintings as a witness of the Life
Bedri KARAYAĞMURLAR

As the painter transforms the objective world, the things get visibility. We always meet numerous things in our daily routine. We do not care.There happens a wedding ceremony. we just glance. the people dance. The players give sounds. The bride walks around. A usual hurry sweeps the people in the streets or at cafes We do not see. What meanings do the broken bike, a stool or a shoe have? They all get old as ordinary materials and leave us at the end. We pass by the garbage dump as being disgusted. But this is the life. And we are still alive. The usual artist is a man who shows the things that the people do not see. Gombrich tells us a mythological story. Artist is the one who sees everywhere from his tower but has no chance to interfere them. No matter what thoughts he has. he witnesses and makes announcements that no anyone else or an establishment do. An approach that has no will to get near to the acdemic and traditional attitudes in Umut's drawings has been determined. Here, in our country, however the types hardly understood are preferred. This is because of the traditional education. Analysing the nature whether in local researches or in the gigantic ones is a primary must for an artist. He especially should be good at observing and analysing the human structure and nature, then use the line's facilities effectively. This demand is all right to a certain point. The problem, here, is the demands based on independent creativity are not let to realize themselves. All artists are expected to perform usual and classical drawings and spottings. the opponents are not welcomed. In fact, the creativity is ability not something else. There have been many talented students at school who become loser! Many ones have been rubbered just as being hyperactive or naughty or non-conformist. Later, they perspire to be successful.Being an artist is really a strange process.you see the ones who get results over their agitative and imposing paintings. On the other hand, the ones who work hard with self-sacrifice taste fail. Orhan Umut has become a talented creator and brought positive impressions after this process. The continuity of the peaceful relations the Eastern man installs between the tradition and the urban life has a reliable role here. Modesty, open-mind and enthusiasm he has show us how matured he is. Do you know how many apt actors waste their time in the streets but not get role on stage. There the enthusiasm they have is domesticated but not gain style. The important criteria for the painting is the success held at shaping not the topics. Orhan presents us the realities of the world which we mostly ignore in our daily life. Even if this world sometimes brings Lautrec's characters into the mind, it presents the real persons of the life not the showmen. We meet Brughel's breathing tracks. He may be named as the "Contemporary Brughel". Orhan, who examines the men in their actual life, deals with a mixed culture of the people making Rembetico style of a music in the ordinary bars or the ones who do not have any political anxieties but shout at the football matches. The hero of this culture is a typical member of the middle-class trying to reach at least to the edge of the upper levels in society. In reality we do not want to meet them either on business or during an entertainment. These are, in some circumstances, Goya's people. But, when we consider today's life, these people bring us the common portraits from non-developed countries. we mostly see stages from Emir Kusturica's films. Cruel, meaningless. On the other hand, a very beautiful world where these people nest. Bombings in Iraq or murderies happen just a few hundreds metres away are the realities of the life, but it goes on. So, the musical instruments which accompany the hoarse voice of an unreasonable singer must not stop. The woman saving her life as repairing the broken bike can not do anything about anything else. Orhan describes the unhappy and sullen people opposite to the rainbowish face of the life. The ones who load themselves into the streets in their red cars after a match make noise not because they are supporters of one party, but just to fulfill a necessity.In reality neither the teams nor the score have gain their interests. Being on a side is a way of filtrating the hard life's gifts.There are not any other methods for these people who work for the others, live to satisfy the others except of showing the cars they had bought in difficulty. The relation between the product and the daily life or the interest we are in it depend on the product's structure and how we are close to it. This is important to mean the product. The more you keep yourself away from the artistic matter and care for the critical one, the more relation you install with the receivers. The easyness in perceivement of the cartoon characters drawn in mobile drama companies or in performative shows in the villages is not because of the way they are realized but is hidden in the simplicity of critism. It seems that Orhan has found the key of this secret. But, here, is a risk. If you do not give any logistics to Humour through the plastic facilities you can not name the product "a paint". The relation which Hogart has held between the homour for the critism of the daily life and the linguistic of plastic presents us very reliable samples from this point of view. In a quotation Tahsin Yücel got by "Genie du Chritianisme" of Chataubriand emphasizes that "it is not the simple nature effects us but the nature that is got closer to our souls and hearts through the humanitarian acts of art."(1) This narrative approach and life sections we have got from representational meaning of view present noticeable clues from symbolic and imaginary point of view. Men and bikes are similar as image. All of them are old and presented us as if they are elements of a speculative game. However they were born in this life. We start to think that we watch an epic drama. If we force our imaginary world we can say that all these are the cross-sections from an existentialist novel. Life is for nothing. A hard and meaningless life dictate us a thought of "everything is for the end. So, there is no reason to try and run." Orhan has interesting determinations of colour and shape. Blue bikes and red cars. the bikes are for nostalgia of a past, happy childhood, but the cars are the future desired with passion. 19, A-89 as symbols do not give us their aim clearly, but they take important implicative and allusive missions. the woman with the number 19 on is not a miss beauty. So she must be prostitute. What we understand from Orhan's paintings considering the musicians and the prostitutes, of course, is the characters are of a very hard life which is hard to stand. These are the paintings reflecting the difficulties of life and say that the life is not only the places like Laila or Halikarnas Disco where you get tired or make fun. The paintings of " Dialogue" are the for the most non-communicative faces of life. When we consider the characters, their content and the meaning, we find black humour that has been cowered and transformed. The critics we see on the cruel stages of Neşe Erdok's paintings are hidden. But, Orhan tries to show what he sees and warns us. Orhan's painting is primarily a figurative painting. Actually, the illustrative one is completely isolated first from the formal and artistic point of view. The happening, the place and the dwellers are the main sorces of the paint. after determination of these, the turn of artistic tryings as using the illustrative values comes during the phase of painting. Orhan, by this stand, has caught a new argument. he transmits us the common pains of the people living in different areas of the world as through an ironic language. "All compositions have some objective elements, informative datas that get it important or meaningful. All compositions are the reflectors of the place where they have been produced. They bring social and historical values. the subjective properties of a work of art contains the objective characteristics of its period and its place."(2) All compositions -abstractive or figurative- are credible certificates of their eras/periods and perceivement styles if they are not aimed to get commercial profits or just the public's applause. Orhan's paintings have right to be interested as they are qualified and brave works witnessing the period.