Illustrator Serdar Hizli was born on May 5, 1959, in Izmit/Kocaeli/Turkey, as the middle child of a family with three boys. His father, Abdullah Hizli, was a civil servant, and his mother, Meliha Hizli, was a housewife. After completing his primary and secondary education in his hometown, he entered Istanbul Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Faculty of Architecture, after succeeding in university entrance exams.

CHILDHOOD, YOUTH YEARS, FIRST STEPS INTO THE ART WORLD:

Serdar Hizli, who had a great interest in painting, cinema, music, and literature, was initially influenced by his father, who painted as a hobby, and comic magazines like ZIPZIP, 1001 Roman, and Dogan Kardes. He started making comic strip attempts before elementary school. During middle school, he published a wall newspaper. When he started high school, he wrote short stories for a local magazine.

WORKS IN LOCAL MEDIA:

While his amateur drawings were published in the reader pages of HEY Magazine, he started his first professional works at the age of 15, illustrating stories for the local newspaper KOCAELI. His first comic book, „Gecmisten Gelen Adam“ (The Man from the Past), was published in KOCAELI Newspaper, followed by „Suskun Gece“ (Silent Night) and other comic books. He continued to produce comic books by transferring to „BARIS“ newspaper, another local newspaper.

WORKS IN NATIONAL MEDIA:

When he was 18 years old, he won an art competition organized by HEY Magazine, which led to an invitation from the magazine’s executives, Dogan Sener and Yener Süsoy. While continuing his university education, he started drawing posters of celebrities for HEY Magazine. The magazine’s editor, Dogan Sener, entrusted Hızlı with creating cover illustrations for the magazine’s supplement called „MÜZIK DÜNYASI“ (Music World). He also drew cover illustrations for the comic book magazine „Yüzbasi Volkan“ published by ALFA Publications owned by Ali Recan. Additionally, he created numerous cover illustrations for Teksas, Tommiks, Teks, and Kit Taylor comic book magazines by CEYLAN Publications owned by Erdogan Egeli.

INTERNATIONAL AND GLOBAL WORKS:

Having dreamed of promoting his works worldwide since childhood, the artist wrote and illustrated 11 short horror stories for a publishing house in Germany and created 2 long comic books for „Phantom“ magazine, known as „Kizilmaske“ in Turkey. After completing his architecture education in 1983, he sought ways to establish connections with other publishers in Germany and sent three James Dean portraits he drew to the German youth magazine „BRAVO.“ Upon the positive reception of his drawings, he was invited to a meeting by the magazine’s executives. After staying in Munich for a while, he returned to Turkey to fulfill his military service. After completing his military duty, while working as a site supervisor for two years at an industrial site in Istanbul/Topkapi, he created posters for HEY Magazine and story illustrations for Erkekce Magazine. As his Western novel cover illustrations started to be continuously published by Martin Kelter Verlag in Hamburg, he moved to Germany and began living in Berlin. He continued to create cover illustrations for Kelter Verlag, cover illustrations for Tip Magazine, advertising posters and storyboards for various agencies, CD/MC cover illustrations for Edel Company, including the music of Rod Stewart and films featuring Clint Eastwood, and celebrity posters for Pop/Rocky Magazine. His cover works were published in various European countries such as Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, and Sweden. He worked with illustration agencies in Hamburg and New York.

Serdar Hizli realized his dream of promoting his works worldwide by signing an agreement with Scandecor, one of the largest poster companies of those years. After catching the attention of the company’s art director, his poster titled „Stars On Top“ was released for sale worldwide and achieved a significant sales graph, selling millions of copies between 1996 and 2000. Inspired by the classic black and white photograph „Lunchtime Atop A Skyscraper,“ taken during the construction of skyscrapers in New York in 1932, which showed eleven male workers having lunch on an iron beam 256 meters above the ground, he created a colored poster featuring Hollywood celebrities. Following the great interest in the poster, he drew a poster titled „Stars On Top 2“ with female Hollywood stars. Between 1996 and 2004, Hizli created twelve poster works for Scandecor, which were sold worldwide. His international works were introduced to the audience on the „Arena“ program, hosted and prepared by Ugur Dündar, on Kanal D in 1996.

As an artist who produced paintings in the Pop Art and abstract genres for collectors at one point, Hızlı’s works continue to be published in international media.