MEHMET KIYAT

He was born in Malatya and completed his primary and secondary education in the same city. After attending Kuleli Military High School, he entered the Air Force Academy. Upon graduation, he served in Diyarbakır, Ankara, and Balıkesir, eventually retiring at his own request in March 1980. He relocated the Doku Art Gallery, which he had established in the Kızılay district of Ankara in early 1984, to Çankaya in 1986, and later opened a second branch of the gallery in Teşvikiye, Istanbul, in 1996. Mehmet Kıyat has exhibited works by prominent visual artists, held eight solo painting exhibitions, and published forty-one poetry books, the first of which appeared in 1962.