Artist turns time into a work of art

ISTANBUL

Artist Murat Uçar presents world-famous works to art lovers that he created on different materials using micro art techniques.

Uçar started micro art after graduating from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Department of Traditional Turkish Arts and has been a lecturer at the same university since 2000.

Uçar makes paintings, sculptures, and relief work on various objects such as prayer beads, pens, watches and various jewelry to turn them into pieces of micro art.

Having presented many exhibitions in Turkey and abroad and designed watches for famous political leaders, athletes and businesspersons, Uçar spoke to the state-run Anadolu Agency about his work and new project.

Stating that he started micro painting with the idea of showing all the works in a museum to art lovers in one room and that he first started to make famous works such as “Mona Lisa” in tiny paintings.

Pointing out that he imagined himself as a child while starting this work, Uçar said, “When a child enters a very large museum, he or she can get bored very quickly. But I thought that it might be quite interesting for a six-year-old child to look at all the works with tiny magnifying glasses,” he said.

He headed on with this idea and started carving works of arts on to watches and pieces of jewelry.

Stating that he wanted to make famous works of arts accessible in one place, he said, “In fact, when you go to the Louvre Museum today, you need to stay there for days, get to know the place, and spend your days in order to examine the objective and artistic works there, but by making favorite paintings or a landscape portable, I made an artistic work there more recognizable and visible.”

Having achieved success with micro paintings in his career, Uçar said that he wishes to work with talented artists in the future.

Noting that he was always looking for something different during his university education, Uçar said, “I tried to question what I could add to my art, not the things that are known and experienced before. “

Underlining that he has been designing wristwatches for years and have some 1,300 watch designs, he said, “While designing these watches, I revealed my identity as both a designer and an artist.”

Stating that it takes effort to become an artist, he said: “I started thinking about what I could do differently in a watch and how I could apply art to a watch or jewelry. I have been working very intensively on this issue since 2003.”

Stating that he also follows world trends while designing, Uçar said: “Anyway, the design comes to a deadlock after a certain point in the elements that we call watches or jewelry. It is necessary to attribute another meaning to it. That is to say, it needs to have a story. When you ask, ‘what can its story be with?’ It can only be with art.”

Stating that he determined a motto for him while designing a watch, that goes, “Time has chosen me to be turned into art. I turn the timeless hour into art,” he said, “It was as if my existence, the reason why I was here was related to hour and time.”

“I have been using this motto for the last 10 years, and today, as a result of great efforts, I am creating a brand with a local company using Swiss machines of German quality. With this brand, I am trying to show how important our traditional arts are in the world and how competent we are in this field. These traditional pieces of art include micro mosaic, micro painting, engraving, relief, tile, pencil work and marbling,” he added.

Speaking of his techniques that he makes use of floor fillers and painting in watch designs and that the work is time-consuming, Uçar said, “If a painting of Istanbul is requested for a watch, it may take a few days. My interpretation of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper,’ where I made a painting of 12 apostles standing around a table rotating 360 degrees on a watch took me a month and a half. So, I worked at least eight hours a day for a month and a half. “

“In other words, different designs take different times. For example, I am making a watch with Michelangelo’s paintings from the Sistine Chapel. I have been working on it for two months, which is still halfway,” he added.

Uçar also said that he mostly receives requests from Arab countries and the U.S. abroad. “The paintings of the biggest mosques of Arabia, and hawks, which are considered sacred to Arabs, are among the most desired and demanded works. My work on watches and jewelry are mostly in demand from the U.S.”