Mustafa Ziya ÜLKENCİLER

Ülkenciler was born in 1947 Antalya and has been living in Istanbul since he came for getting a higher education in 1967. He began his professional photography career in 1976 and went onto found Bilsak Photography Studio in 1983 to held tanıtım photography courses. He opened up his first art exhibition at Taksim Art Gallery in 1984 and dived into the movie industry with the movie Dilan (Director: Erden Kral). He photographed the backstage for Asiye Nasıl Kurtulur (Atıf Yılmaz), Hayallerim Aşkım ve Sen (Atıf Yılmaz). While he was working as a part of  Odak Film, he did various photo-interviews focusing on art, movies, photography for certain newspapers and magazines. Ülkenciler opened his second art exhibition at Ankara Artisan Art Gallery in 1987. On 1988, he opened a photograph exhibition called “Setlerden Gökyüzüne”  together with Orhan oğuz in Istanbul World Cinema. He held another photograph exhibition in Ortaköy Artisan Art Gallery that hosts photographs from movies “Yer Demir Gök Bakır” and “Dilan”. He began his art directing career with a Sinan Çetin movie “Dublör” [Stuntman], then worked on Tunç Okan’s movie Fikrimin İnce Gülü [The Yellow Mercedes]. Apart from art directing, he continued his photography work together with Güneş Karabuda for “Boğaziçine Sığınanlar” (Documentary) and “Menekşe Koyu” [Violet Shore]. While continuing to work on movies, Ülkenciler also kept directing various advertisements and designed and implemented decorations for different art, news, magazines, interview and entertainment programs.

Currently, Ülkenciler continues to work as an art director, production and  decoration designer, photographer while simultaneously leads lectures in  Mimar Sinan University The Department of Interior Architecture, Bahçeşehir University The Graduate School of Architecture, Bahçeşehir University The Department of Art Design and Okan University.