(1961 - 2019)
Levent Isik was born in 1961 in Istanbul Turkey. He grew up in Montreal, Canada and now lives in Columbus, Ohio. Levent began painting in the late 1980s. Much of his work is three dimensional - created by using objects like marbles or dolls eyes. His paintings of wildly fanciful animals, mermaids, fish and people are often painted with brightly colored high gloss enamels."His work is witty and fun" (Rosenak) "The craftmanship that goes into each work takes Levent weeks if not months to complete, making them even rarer since his production rate is so slow" (David Crotty).
Isik's work has been exhibited in Germany, France, Belgium and Egypt and numerous locations in the US.
Ref: 20th Century American Folk, Self Taught, and Outsider Art, Sellen/Johnson (1993); Contemporary American Folk Art - A Collector's Guide, Chuck and Jan Rosenak (1996); Flying Free: Twentieth-Century Self-Taught Art from the Collection of Ellin and Baron Gordon, Gordon/Luck/Patterson, exhibit catalog for The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center (1997); Guide to Self Taught, Outsider, and Folk Art, Sellen/Johnson (2000); American Self-Taught Art: An Illustrated Analysis of 20th Century Artists and Trends, Florence and Julius Laffal (2003).
