İsmet Üstekin

İsmet Üstekin — Biography

İsmet Üstekin is a Turkish artist born in 1946 in Istanbul who has combined painting, photography and acting over a long career. After training at the LCC Language and Culture Center theater school between 1968 and 1971, he took the stage from 1971 onward with numerous companies, including the Dormen Theatre, the Ali Poyrazoğlu Theatre, the Gülriz Sururi-Engin Cezzar Theatre, the Bakırköy Municipal Theatres and Tiyatro İstanbul. From 1973 he moved into film and television, appearing in more than thirty productions, among them Sipsevdi (1977), Belene (1987) and Sihirli Annem (2005).

Alongside his stage work, Üstekin turned to the visual arts as well, becoming a professional photographer in 1975 and taking up painting in 1982. He has held fourteen solo exhibitions of oil and pastel work and developed a technique of converting his photographs into paintings that he calls "Fotores," first exhibited at Galeri Arkeopera in Istanbul.

In his personal life, he married actress Sevil Barutçu in 1968, a marriage that lasted until 1984.