Akif Celikel, born in Ankara, Turkey, is a visual artist working primarily in the medium of photography.

Akif is known for creating figurative and emotionally compelling artworks often with a painterly quality that are dramatic, ethereal, with multiple layers of senses and mysteries lie behind symbolism.

He is inspired by great representatives of renaissance, baroque, neoclassic and orientalist movements such as Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Bernini, Bouguereau and Jean-Léon Gérôme.

Artist approach photographic frame as a canvas to create conceptual ideas to create iconic images with inricate and emotionally intense spirit that often challenge the contemporary visual culture.

His early works concentrated to the themes such as bodyscapes, classical ballet backstages, fictionalised scenes of ballet and nature.

Akif’s recent epoch artworks stands apart from the conventional photographic understanding besides conserving technical quality of the medium and classical knowledge of aesthetics.

Artist identifies himself as an alchemist and a seeker of mystery behind the camera. His travel for try to comprehend the hidden reality of the existence transforms and recreate himself and his approach to his art over and over again.