Statement


From the Curators

An artist of many different mediums, Anil Duran lets the subject determine its expression — whether it’s a force of nature, gravity, Schumann resonance, a piece of rope, pigments, computers, or pure experience itself. These aren’t casual choices of method or subject; they spring from one mind’s consistent logic of shapes, forms, and colors.

Anil has always experienced a specific form of synesthesia: the translation of scenes from his life — emotion, smells, voices, words, place — into elemental shapes and colors or, in his words, “telling the story of that moment in visual terms.” His artwork is an extension of what his senses do, drawing a primary narrative from a world of sensations.   

Naturally, his surroundings have guided the evolution of his work. As a child in a Turkish village, he was surrounded by sheep, trees, and family that fascinated him as systems. He soon learned to translate the visions he experienced from strong emotions and thoughts into vivid paintings and drawings. As he grew and attended art school in the city of Izmir, his work began to fit into the more conventional boundaries of art and design that both taught and confined him in a way that he’d later need to unlearn. As a new transplant to San Francisco, meeting heroes and his own limits, Duran dove into multi-media painting with fury; the excitement and angst of that time are expressed in broad strokes across the canvas. His move to New York applied new pressures and forced new skills on him that first stifled his work completely, before giving rise to completely new mediums. 

His latest video series, ‘NFoT’ Natural Flow of Things, is an exciting evolution of his work — with new motion and sound techniques, Anil can better reveal how this synesthetic process looks and feels. 

NFoT also brings Anil back full circle to the interests of his pastoral youth, interpreting and abstracting the working systems that come from the fundamental laws of nature. He represents their abundant complexity with intricate systems built on chaos and patterns that form and break as a kind of symbolic shorthand. 

Born and educated in Turkey, with a stint in San Francisco, Anil now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Anil Duran describes his installation titled Village as a “moving picture”.  It is a space installation where sections of rural life are combined with amorphous shapes, abstract lines, photographic frames, and spatial objects. 

Duran intensifies the village, where he spent his childhood and to which he owes the development of his imagery, with images, inspirations, and stories he draws from farms in different parts of the world. Territories may change but the village continues to exist with similar practices and ancient knowledge, creating a contrast to this age where speed encompasses every aspect of life. From a narrative that touches on the origins of community life to lines and layered videos reminiscent of ancient cave paintings, this installation suggests the existence of a primitive intelligence about humanity.

Mamut Art Project


Anil Duran’s use of automatism is reminiscent and comparable to the works of abstract expressionists like Jackson Pollock, surrealists like Max Ernst, and Dadaists such as Kurt Schwitters. Through the sheer scale of his artwork, the large, chunky, sweeping brushstrokes, kinetic composition, and the use of collaged found objects, Duran projects raw emotional turmoil onto canvases. Instead of pre-planning components and subject matter, he lets them unfold by acting on his predilection and whims. The paintings are striking and intended to overwhelm with their use of bold, blunt use of primary colors, black, and negative space. Built upon artistic methods such as bricolage and action painting, they reveal the artist’s turbulent subconscious state of mind. His psychology is laid bare through the primal, strained use of paint and materials, showing autobiographical aspects. The brushstrokes and movement are thick, tactile, and animalistic. Anarchic and disorderly, the “thrown-together” nature of the artworks is indexical of the artist’s every movement and impulse, from the hollowsart hollows strain of his body to the collection/binding of objects. Duran’s practices border on shamanistic, automatically projecting his inner self into the paintings. While for the most part abstract, this allows for vaguely figurative flourishes, suggesting eyes, houses, cities, and silhouettes. Each painting features an extreme, uncensored sort of physicality, which functions as an individual narrative visualizing the artist’s actions and mindset.

Gina Mischianti
Hollows Gallery


At first glance, Duran’s images are explosive and arresting. A feeling of enlightenment descends upon the viewer. Staring straight into the headlights of brilliance, each piece pulsates, taking you on a journey that leaves you on the edge of some great epiphany or discovery. Through the use of mixed media gathered from around the world Duran’s compositions- while unplanned- appear to be preordained. Like an impatient horse stomping its hooves, his figurative works demand acknowledgment. With their penetrating, unwavering, unyielding gaze the figures leave the viewer transfixed.

Julianne Yates
TheHeist Gallery


His figures float across the canvas, distilled to their essence, carried by memories, infused with a heightened awareness of internal and eternal. While the work evokes mystery and enigma, presents itself as an abstraction that oozes with human eminence. With its whimsical qualities, the light is the very core of his work as the subject and reflects a very strong emphasis on line.

Zisan Ugurlu
Marmara Manhattan Gallery

Selected Exhibitions

2023

Feshane 'Ortadan Başlamak', Group Show
Artİstanbul Feshane, Istanbul, Turkey

Visions of Sound: Noises, Rhythms, and Acoustic Ambients, Group Show
Millepiani Gallery, Rome, Italy

2022

Mamut Art Project, Group Show
Bomontiada Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey

Neo Shibuya TV - Screening, Personal Event
Shibuya, Tokyo

2014

Independent Curators INTL, DO IT, Group Show
New York, USA

2010

So Much Burning, Group Show
Gallery Heist, San Francisco, USA

2009

Game - Against the Light, Personal Exhibition
The Marmara Manhattan Gallery, New York, USA

While I Was Breathing Here, Personal Exhibition
Hyde Street Gallery, San Francisco, USA

20th Century, Group Show
Gallery Csongrad, Csongrad, Hungary

2008

000000000/10, Group Show
Gallery Daralan, Istanbul, Turkey

Video Performance, Group Show
Kargart Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey

Plein Air National Art Show II, Group Show
Joseph Atilla University Gallery, Csongrad, Hungary

Plein Air National Art Show I, Group Show
Szeged Gallery, Szeged, Hungary

1999

Experiments, Group Show
Hayal Gallery, Izmir, Turkey