Having taken some drawing and painting lessons in the past, I keep from this time an attraction for these arts and ended up being interested in them, on the fringe of calligraphy. I have a taste for Western illumination, but I am mainly interested in Ottoman miniature, then Eastern illumination (tezhib) and finally Persian miniature. Thus, I am familiar with the blue of the celestial vault and the gold of the divinities.
ISTANBUL
Sabine Buchmann
The Bosphorus inspires me, Sabine guides me to the blue...
For a long time I have been putting off the great leap into the unknown that miniature painting represented for me. Too precise, too beautiful for me, I thought. Then I met Sabine Buchmann, whose paintings enlightened me and whose style attracted me. So I began to work with her on my first paintings of Ottoman miniature figures.
I then moved on from the human to the geographical, and began to copy the style of an admiral geographer, a hero of Ottoman history, the great Piri Reis. He had mapped the entire known world ; I would start with a few islands in the Mediterranean.
PARIS
Ali Goli
Far from the East, on the banks of the Seine, I discovered Persian painting and its golds.
I was looking for a Persian illuminator, I finally found a restorer, who masters both illumination and miniature, but where he excels is in the use of gold. I enter the world of detail and finesse of line and my guide is called Ali Goli.