Biography
Zeliha Akçaoğlu is a painter and academic based in Eskişehir. She has been a member of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Anadolu University since 1994 and has held the title of Professor in the Department of Painting since 2010. Her work moves between a sustained studio practice and a body of scholarship on modern and contemporary painting, and the two inform one another: the concerns that run through the research she has written and supervised — memory, the instability of the image, the relation between material and expression — are the concerns of the studio as well.
She read fine arts education at Gazi University, graduating from the Department of Fine Arts Education of the Gazi Faculty of Education in 1987. She then took a master's degree in painting at Parsons School of Design, The New School for Social Research, in New York, completed in 1994, and returned to Turkey to complete the Proficiency in Art degree (Sanatta Yeterlik, the practice-based doctoral equivalent in the Turkish system) at the Institute of Fine Arts of Hacettepe University in 1998. The two doctoral-level programmes overlapped with her first years of teaching, and the New York period gave her the ground for the writing on Duchamp, Cage and Warhol that followed.
Her entire academic career has been made at Anadolu University. She joined the Department of Painting as a research assistant in 1994, was appointed lecturer in 1995, assistant professor in 1998 and associate professor in 2003, and was made professor in 2010. She served as Head of Department at the Faculty of Fine Arts from 2012 to 2014 and, concurrently, as Head of Department at the Institute of Fine Arts from 2013 to 2014.
Alongside her teaching she has maintained an active exhibiting practice. The university record documents more than sixty artistic activities since 2015 alone, among them solo exhibitions in 2017 and 2018, including one mounted for Ege Art, a two-person exhibition with Murat Akçaoğlu, and regular participation in the Turkish art fair circuit, including ArtAnkara and ArtNouva. She has worked repeatedly in the international workshop and symposium format — plein-air and colony residencies at Sozopol in Bulgaria and Sjenica in Serbia, the Turkey–Austria symposium Culture and Idol, the Girih International Art Symposium, and an art exchange week between Anadolu University and Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics — as well as in workshops across Turkey, at Ayvalık, Alaçatı, Sapanca, Vize, Adıyaman and Gaziantep. Earlier in her career her work was recognised in the principal national competitions: the State Painting and Sculpture Competition in 1999 and again in 2002, the TRT Painting and Ceramics Competition in 2001, and the annual painting competition of the Turkish Naval Forces Command in 1997.
Her written work centres on three recurring concerns: the historiography of women artists in Turkish painting, on which she has published studies of Şükriye Dikmen and Aliye Berger; the theoretical apparatus of postmodernism and its precursors, addressed through Duchamp, Cage and Warhol, through Rothko, and more recently through the relation between art and cynicism in Grosz and Warhol; and method in art education, including work on rapid drawing as a route to self-regulation in the studio. She was principal investigator of the university-funded research project The Anxiety of the Image (2015–2018) and has taken part in Reflections of Climate Change as an Ecological Process on the Art of Painting (2024–2025). She has served as an editor of the Anadolu University Journal of Art & Design, of Art-e and of Sanat Yazıları, and acts as a referee for peer-reviewed journals in the field.
In teaching she carries the studio sequence Painting II to VI and the course Contemporary Painting at undergraduate level, Colour and Light at doctoral level, and Avant-Garde Art together with the specialisation course in the proficiency-in-art programme. She has supervised twenty-one completed theses — fourteen at master's level and seven in proficiency in art — on subjects ranging from the transfer of memory in painting and the anxiety of the image to the semiotics of Cihat Burak, the use of material and forms of expression after the Industrial Revolution, and the NFT as an artistic medium.
Her academic record, publications and contact details are maintained by the university at avesis.anadolu.edu.tr/zakcaoglu.
Education
- 1992–1998Proficiency in Art, PaintingHacettepe University, Institute of Fine Arts, Ankara
- 1991–1994MA, PaintingParsons School of Design, The New School for Social Research, New York
- 1983–1987BA, Fine Arts EducationGazi University, Gazi Faculty of Education, Ankara
Academic positions
- 2010–ProfessorAnadolu University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Painting
- 2003–2010Associate ProfessorAnadolu University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Painting
- 1998–2003Assistant ProfessorAnadolu University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Painting
- 1995–1998LecturerAnadolu University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Painting
- 1994–1995Research AssistantAnadolu University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Painting
Selected exhibitions and workshops
- 2024ArtAnkara, 10th Contemporary Art FairArt fair, Ankara
- 2024ArtNouva Art FairArt fair
- 2024The Artistic Hundred of the RepublicGroup exhibition
- 2023Secret GardensGroup exhibition
- 2023Vize Municipality International Art WorkshopWorkshop and exhibition, Vize
- 2022International Plein Air “Sozopol”Plein-air workshop, Sozopol, Bulgaria
- 2021Likovna Kolonija SjenicaArt colony, Sjenica, Serbia
- 2021“Girih” International Art SymposiumInternational symposium
- 2018Zeliha AkçaoğluSolo painting exhibition
- 2018Art Exchange WeekNanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics with Anadolu University
- 20181st International Adıyaman Perre Art WorkshopInternational workshop, Adıyaman
- 2017Ege Art — Zeliha Akçaoğlu Painting ExhibitionSolo exhibition
- 2017Zeliha Akçaoğlu & Murat AkçaoğluTwo-person painting exhibition
- 20167/26Group exhibition, TÜYAP
- 2015Culture and IdolTurkey–Austria art symposium and exhibition
- 20151st Ayvalık International Art WorkshopWorkshop and exhibition, Ayvalık
Selection from more than sixty exhibitions and artistic activities recorded since 2015. Full list at AVESİS.
Awards
- 200263rd State Painting and Sculpture CompetitionMinistry of Culture
- 2001TRT Painting and Ceramics CompetitionTurkish Radio and Television Corporation
- 199960th State Painting and Sculpture CompetitionMinistry of Culture
- 1997Annual Painting CompetitionTurkish Naval Forces Command
Selected publications
- 2023Sanat ve Sinizm (Yabancılaşma) İlişkisi: George Grosz ve Andy WarholWith B. N. Cengiz. Art-e, vol. 16, no. 31, pp. 14–45
- 2023Görsel Sanatlar Eğitiminde Hızlı Çizim-Resim Yöntemi ve Öz DenetimAdıyaman University Journal of the Institute of Social Sciences, no. 43, pp. 341–355
- 2010Bir Kadın Sanatçı: Şükriye DikmenThe Journal of International Social Research, pp. 22–26
- 2010Resimde Kıpırtıe-Journal of New World Sciences Academy, pp. 104–113
- 2004Duchamp, Cage, Warhol ve PostmodernizmAnadolu University Journal of Art & Design, no. 15, pp. 109–115
- 2002Rothko’nun Yolculuğu 1913–1970Anadolu University Journal of Art & Design, no. 13, pp. 85–92
- 2009Bir Kadın Sanatçı: Aliye BergerConference paper, International Multidisciplinary Women’s Congress
- 2009Türk Resmi (1453–1955 arası)Conference paper, International Symposium on Turkey–Egypt Relations
Full list of eleven publications at AVESİS.
Editorial work and projects
- 2022–2024EditorAnadolu University Journal of Art & Design
- 2023EditorArt-e and Sanat Yazıları
- 2023RefereeArt-e; Yedi: Journal of Art, Design and Science
- 2024–2025Reflections of Climate Change as an Ecological Process on the Art of PaintingResearcher, university-funded research project
- 2015–2018The Anxiety of the ImagePrincipal investigator, university-funded research project
Administrative roles
- 2013–2014Head of DepartmentAnadolu University, Institute of Fine Arts
- 2012–2014Head of DepartmentAnadolu University, Faculty of Fine Arts
Teaching
- UndergraduatePainting II–VIContemporary Painting
- DoctoralColour and Light
- ProficiencyAvant-Garde ArtSpecialisation course
Twenty-one completed theses supervised: fourteen at master's level and seven in proficiency in art.