Pastel painter, born in 1965 in Tebriz, Iran. He is currently a Turkish citizen and lives in Istanbul.

His first exhibition took place in 1978, when he was working on reproductions of the famous paintings in the Saadabat Palace Museum. Since 1998, Seven Art Gallery has been hosting his solo exhibitions in Istanbul, where he continues to paint and teach at the same time.

Javad Soleimanpour burst onto the pastel scene in April 2009 when he won first place in the Landscape and Interior category in that year's Pastel 100 magazine. He was nominated for the competition by his students. The winning painting was a stormy seascape with the Haydarpasa lighthouse – Soleimanpour.

He has been living for five years on the shores of the Sea of Marmara which connects to both the Black Sea and the Aegean – and there is no shortage of themes featuring seven lighthouses off the coast of Istanbul in his works.

Soleimanpour is a self-taught artist. He has been painting since he was 12 and has been painting professionally for a quarter of a century. He likes to work outdoors, but often finishes works in his studio.

He has an extraordinary talent for painting and solid painting skills! His style is full of colors and each painting contains a strong style and intense emotions, which is touching. He is currently focusing on creating and teaching oil painting and pastel painting.

Soleimanpour has this to say about his life as an artist: “Since my childhood I only wanted to paint, and nothing else. I have painted the people and things I liked. People always had things to tell, but they never knew that I only liked to watch them talk instead of listening to them, so maybe I should apologize. Faces with all their undulations, textures and shadows… time stops when I paint. And what is behind the interaction of my art with the viewer is something that comes from deep within, from my heart. That intense and endless feeling of dealing with any subject in painting has become mundane to me, like breathing.”

In 2013 he made portraits of all the presidents of Turkey with the demands of the presidency and they are currently displayed in the presidential complex.

Javad Soleimanpour's paintings won the highest honors in the 22nd Annual Pastel 100 Competition.

Javad Soleimanpour's pastel paintings are among the most exquisite and accomplished I have ever seen. He has been absent from the web for some time, but now the Seven Sanat Galerisi in Istanbul is exhibiting some of his works.

Learn more about Javad Soleimanpour