İBRAHİM BALABAN

İBRAHİM BALABAN (1921), eserleri Galeri Soyut arşivinde yer alan sanatçılardandır. Galeri Soyut sitesinde sanatçının 143 eseri ve 8 sergisi kayıtlı (eserlerin tarih aralığı 1945–2025). Sitedeki eserlerinde en çok görülen teknikler: Kağıt üzeri karakalem, Tuval üzeri yağlı boya, Dijital baskı. Eserleri hakkında bilgi ve fiyat için galeriye danışabilirsiniz.

İbrahim Balaban (1921, Bursa – June 9, 2019; Güngören, İstanbul), Turkish painter and writer.
He was born in 1921 in Seçköy, Osmangazi, Bursa. He studied at his native village's 3-year school. In the final days of 1937, when he was just 16 years old, he was imprisoned for cultivating Indian hemp. He began to draw pictures to console himself in prison. He made his paintings with colored pencils dipped in olive oil. He was sentenced to six months in prison and a 16,000 lira fine; however, when he could not pay the fine, it was converted into a three-year sentence. With very little time left to serve, Balaban was attacked by four inmates, and after getting out of prison, on the day he married, he killed his rival who raided the wedding house and re-entered prison. He spent the periods between 1942 and 1944, and 1947 and 1950 in Bursa Prison.
While in prison, he received news first that his father Hasan Çavuş had fallen victim to a murder; then that his wife had died in childbirth; and a very short time later, of the death of his child.

Ateşin Başında
In Bursa Prison, Balaban met Nâzım Hikmet, who was 20 years older than him. Thanks to his support and interest, his painting talent emerged and developed. Nâzım Hikmet wanted to train Orhan Kemal as a story writer and Balaban as a painter. In prison, İbrahim Balaban acquired practical knowledge in philosophy, sociology, and political economy alongside painting. The painter recounted his seven years with Nâzım Hikmet in his later book Şair Baba ve Damdakiler. There are quotes from this book in the play titled "Aslolan Hayattır" staged at the Istanbul City Theatres and in the feature film titled "Mavi Gözlü Dev : Nâzım Hikmet" (Director: Biket İlhan). Additionally, the book was adapted into a play by author Haldun Çubukçu, staged by director Ayşe Emel Mesci, and performed at the Ankara State Theatre in 2011.

Balaban put forward the theory, "Art is the projection of life. The subject is an essence, and every essence makes its own shell. (That is, it forms its artistic form.)" and based his art on this theory. He opened his first exhibition in 1953 in Istanbul at the French Cultural Center. In subsequent years, he opened numerous exhibitions both in Turkey and abroad. In 1961, he was put on trial because of a painting in the New Wing Group exhibition, but was acquitted. Again in 1968, he was put on trial because of a painting published in Gazi Magazine; he was acquitted of that as well. In 1969, his paintings exhibited in Adana were attacked.

Art critics define him as "a painter who produces social-realist works based on the life of the Anatolian people and folk legends." Balaban divides his artistic life into periods such as Scattered, Embroidered, Lopsided, Toy-like, Captive, and Freedom. Initially depicting the poverty of village life and peasant production tools, the artist gradually extends to epics, folk beliefs, heroes, legends, and mythology. Gradually, he addresses rural-to-urban migration, life in the city, and the struggle for democracy. In his recent period, he paints Anatolian Saints and Mothers of Abundance.
To date, he has produced more than two thousand paintings and several times that number in drawings; he is also a writer, with 11 published books.
The painter last exhibited his drawing works in 2005 in Istanbul. These drawings were gathered in the book Balaban-Yaşamın Çizgileri / Desenler (Remzi Oğuz Yılmaz).
Following the book İbrahim Balaban-yaşamı sanatı anılar yankılar (Ahmet Köksal) published in 1990; Balaban-Yaşantının İzdüşümü (Zafer E. Bilgin), which includes his paintings, was published in 2008. The book Balaban-Bir Ressam Yunus Emre, prepared by Hasan Nazım Balaban and Zafer E. Bilgin and published in 2009, is a reference book gathering poems, articles, essays, books, and writings compiled from encyclopedias about him.
Nâzım Hikmet, with whom he served time in prison, would write the poem titled "İbrahim Balaban’ın Bahar Tablosu Üstüne" inspired by his painting "Bahar": "Behold, observe with your eye, the skill of Balaban /………../ Here is the tilled earth / Here is man: / the master of the mountain, stone, wolf, and bird. / Here are his raw hide sandals, here are the patches on his baggy trousers / Here is the wooden plow. / Here are his oxen with sorrowful, terrifying hollows on their crugs. / He lay in prison for ten years, but Balaban did not lose his hope. / Here comes Ali's daughter from Seçköy to the field with her bay foals." Furthermore, Nâzım Hikmet also wrote poems for İbrahim Balaban's paintings "Mapushane Kapısı" and "Harman".
He appeared in the role of "Bülbül hoca" in the film "mülteci" directed by Reis Çelik, released in March 2008. From his second marriage, he has two sons, a daughter, and five grandchildren. His son Hasan Nazım Balaban, born in 1955, is also a painter like him. The artist passed away on June 9, 2019, at the age of 98 in a hospital where he was receiving treatment in Güngören, Istanbul. His funeral was held at the Şişli Mosque in Istanbul and sent to his hometown Bursa, where he was buried in Seçköy, attached to the Osmangazi district of his hometown.