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Barış Suyabatmaz, the artist whose mural features so prominently in Monica Fritz's photograph on the cover of the latest Cornucopia, out this week, made his career following his family’s footsteps. He is the grandson and son of Istanbul sign-painters and the great-grandson of an Ottoman calligraphist and teaches Traditional Arts at his alma mater, the Mimar Sinan Academy of Fine Arts, where he specialised in bookbinding (studying under a pupil of the great Emin Barın, profiled in Cornucopia 26).
Barış takes his delightful naive art to a personal level by playfully adding nostalgic cars and motorcycles. You can find his lively murals at the quaint Garda Cafe in Yeldeğirmeni (styled on the nearby Haydarpaşa Station) and on the walls of Çat Çat Ocakbaşı on Şakayık Sokak in Nişantaşı, where Monica Fritz took this portrait photograph.
For those who look closely at the cover and were wondering, Barış has given his aunt's name to the passing vapur in the Cornucopia cover. For more information, www.barissuyabatmaz.com.
