Biography

She graduated at Istanbul State Fine Arts Academy from the Advanced Painting Department. She made reproduction by studying and examining many European museums. Major reproductions were ‘The Turkish Bath’ by Ingres and ‘Carvey’ Andrea Mantegna, which she made both in Louvre Museum in 1970 and 1971. During the year 1973 she was given a scholarship by the Austrian Government to study at the ‘Salzburg Internationale Sommer Academie für Bildende Kunst’.
In 1983 Onat received a “proficiency in art” degree from Marmara University where she was an academician. She became an associate in 1990 and professor in 2000.

In 1987 she established with Hasan Yelmen Derimod Culture Centre and realized retrospective exhibitions and she was the first in Turkey to publish art books and organize retrospective Exhibitions. The artist has delivered figurative works in the 70’s. The social incidents and changes he country has experienced in this era have been reflected in her paintings with the emphasis on the expression. Her thematic paintings in the early 80’s on ‘The Women’ have heralded her figurative works to follow shortly. The canvasses of unconventional forms used for the first time, the repetition of abstract forms and the rhythm emerged from repetition.

The change in her paintings of this era has gained ever-increasing speed while the problematic of location equally reveals simplification and attempts of purification from nostalgia. Her painting titled ‘The Galaxy’ from 1988 that covered the floor of a corner of the Derimod Cultural Centre became the centre of attention and proved for the first time that the canvasses are not necessarily bound for walls. The thick canvasses she later exhibited both on the floor and the wall (‘Canvasses of the object- Big Exhibition – 1990) made a current issue of the fact that the paintings could be considered in line with the location of the exhibition.
‘The wall is not merely a space for displaying art, but is integral part of it’ claims Tülin Onat and underlines this approach in all of her exhibitions.
She has participated in many different group exhibitions in Turkey and abroad, with her works being part of large private collections and museums. The paintings emphasize depth and create with elaborated choice of color a three-dimensional sensation to the point that one is tented to touch the painting – which has been taken to the extreme with the latest ‘nail’ paintings. Taking this concept a logical step further she has worked on the canvas by cutting and drilling wholes, thus turning the illusion of the three dimensionality into reality.

AWARDS
1977 II. DYO Exhibition, Honour Certificate
1988 Exhibition of State Painting and Sculpture
1988 Exhibition of the 400th Anniversary of Mimar Sinan
1988 Bandırma International Culture and Tourism Festival
1989 Artists of today
1989 Beauty of Istanbul Art Activities
After that date she did not attempt any further art competitions

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1980 State Gallery of Fine Arts
1981 Museum of Painting and Sculpture, Izmir
1981 Turkuvaz Art Gallery, Ankara
1981 100. Yıl Art Gallery, Tekirdag
1983 Gallery Baraz, Istanbul
1984 Kibele Art Gallery, Ankara
1984 Art Gallery of Atatürk Faculty of Education
1985 Akbank Art Gallery, Bursa
1985 Akbank Art Gallery, Eskişehir
1987 State Gallery of Fine Arts
1991 Mine Art Gallery, Istanbul
1992 Kazım Taşkent Art Gallery, Istanbul
1993 Kemal Satır Art Gallery, Adana
1993 Gallery Zon, Ankara
1993 Gallery B, Istanbul
1995 Kunst Raum, Berlin
1996 Derimod Art Center, Istanbul
1997 Emlak Art Gallery, Ankara
1999 Gallery Pi Art, Istanbul
2001 ‘Plastic Wine Rose’ İş Bankası Gallery, Istanbul
2004 ‘Metamorfoz’ Gallery Binyil, Istanbul
2002 Pi Artworks, Istanbul
2007 ‘Sınırsız I’ Aldimo Art Gallery, Bodrum
2007 ‘Sınırsız II’ Aldimo Art Gallery, Bodrum
2007 ‘Dilek Ağacı’ The Marmara Pera Gallery
2008 ‘Art Arda’ Mine Art Gallery
2009 ‘Döngü’ Contemporary09, Gallery Art&Life
2011 ‘Tırtılın Sonu’, Kare Art Gallery
2012 ‘Hayal-Et’, Astoria
2013 ‘Partly-Clouded’, Merhart Gallery