“I can’t change the world, but through art or my character, I can give people something, make them think a little more. That would make me happy.”
Born in 1962 in the village of Çağlar, Yuko grew up surrounded by earth and clay. He attended primary school in his village and later middle and high school in Ankara. In 1980, he moved to Berlin, where he studied Computer Science at the Technical University of Berlin, although he left before completing his degree. He later spent six months in Arizona, where he met the Hopi people and experienced the difficult realities of their lives first-hand, an encounter that deeply affected him.
From then on, he devoted himself entirely to painting. His work accompanied a period of personal transformation and reflection on questions of identity and belonging: Which side do I belong to? Where do I come from? Where am I going? Whom will I serve?
Through painting, he discovered a new world in Berlin. In 1985, he held his first exhibition at the Literaturhaus Berlin, and in 1989 received a scholarship from the Berlin Senate for Culture. Between 1990 and 2014, he exhibited widely and participated in numerous group exhibitions. During this period, he lived and painted for extended periods in Italy, the Netherlands, India, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico and Guatemala. In 2014, he settled in Gümüşlük, Bodrum, and continues to live and work between Gümüşlük and Berlin.
