After graduating from Yeditepe University, Industrial Design Department, Akkaya studied at Central Saint Martins Art and Design School (London) for his master's degree. Akkaya's works are based on spontaneous incidents building up to a fictional narrative, playing with the perception of the viewer. They are not set-up photographs, even though one might be leaned to think so at first glance. Akkaya creates unfamiliar spaces from everyday scenes focusing on perfect symmetry.
The photographs, not self-revealing, are loaded with references belonging to a broad intellectual universe, ranging from individual-society relationship to the question of identity, from political criticism to ontology. These concepts Akkaya makes us anticipate without direct confrontation become words inhabiting the work, available to every individual to arrange in different ways in building his own sentences.
One of most distinctive qualities of Ali Bilge's images that he captured in different countries such as India, Bulgaria, Sweden aside Turkey, is the contrast. ?The element of contrast, which is encountered in his every photograph, is not only evident in form and content, but also in light and color. The dualities like light and dark, red and green are used in a way to augment the compositional tension and thus ease the viewer’s entrance to the narrative of the image.
The series arranged by the artist either on different planes or on the same horizontal line are closely related with the moving image. These groups of works, reminiscent of a silent film’s frames, generously reveal Akkaya's enthusiasm in telling people’s story to the people.
ALI BILGE AKKAYA | Istanbul, 1988
The artist who was born in 1988 in Istanbul, studied studied at Central Saint Martins Art and Design School, London for his master's degree after graduating graduating from Yeditepe University, Industrial Design Department. Ali Bilge Akkaya collaborating with designers and sculptures on different projects besides his own designs opens his first photography exhibition, "One", at x-ist.