Kemal B. Caymaz

KEMAL BEHCET CAYMAZ was born in 1989, in the coastal city of Kyrenia in the Cyprus. His elementary and secondary educations were at Girne American Elementary School and Girne American College and in 2003 he attended Nicosia Anatolian High School of Fine Arts and laying the foundation of his art education. During this time his adventure in writing began. He wrote several stories for the school magazine. In 2007 he graduated from high school moving on in the same year to the Near East University Faculty of Fine Arts and Design - Department of Plastic Arts. In 2011, he graduated from the Department in painting and elective ceramic majors as well as opening his first solo exhibition ‘Once Upon A Time’ (Bir Varmış Bir Yokmuş). The Once Upon A Time series was exhibited at the United Nations building in the Buffer Zone where the Cyprus talks take place. In 2014, he was awarded the Artist of the Year award in the Young Artists Painting Competition of the TRNC. Later he represented the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus at the 17th Türksoy Festival meeting the Artists in Azerbaijan. Commencing in 2014, he wrote and illustrated the first book of the SAPPHIRE series “The Promised Time” it being published by Dante Publishing in 2016 as the first fantasy novel set in Cyprus.He successfully completed his post graduate studies in 2017 at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University on painting major at Nedret Sekban Atelier with his thesis on “Different Child Images in Painting from the 20th Century to the Present”. In the same year he received an honourable mention in the Young Artists Painting Competition of TRNC Ministry of Education and Culture, Directorate of Culture Department. A year later in 2018 he was awarded with his series dedicated to the children that died called “Artık Yeter” (It’s enough) by the Directorate of Culture of the TRNC Ministry of Education and Culture. He is a board member of Mediterranean European Art Association (EMAA) and also a member of Association of Paper Artists of Cyprus and Fantasy and Science Fiction Association (FABISAD). He has participated in many national and international exhibitions and seminars and is currently working as an instructor in the Plastic Arts Department of the American University of Cyprus.