Born in 1965 in Erzincan, Turan Aksoy graduated from the Painting Department of Gazi University and went on to complete his master’s degree at Hacettepe University and his PhD at the University of Central England in the UK. Aksoy explores themes familiar to our everyday lives, such as our consumerist culture, nature, violence, comfort and longing. He presents us with the subjects and concepts that preoccupy him using plain, visual references that are not overwhelmed by detail.
The 2010 painting "Motif-Showing Secretly" belongs to a series of eight works called "Genre Painting or A Short History of My Memory Pertaining to Sexuality." In this painting on canvas Aksoy depicts two figures in a green landscape. These shadowy figures of indeterminate sex seem to be meditating in difficult positions. The titles of the other pieces in this series refer to paintings genres such as landscape, portrait, interior, still life, nude, and everyday life. The genre of this particular painting is "motif."