About

The parts could belong to a flower, a coral or a body. Assembled, they settle as none of them.

Ayse Akdemir (b. 1994, Colorado, USA) is a ceramic artist based in Istanbul. She makes sculptures by hand in stoneware and porcelain, concerned with transformation, duality and the states between one form and another. Built without a wheel or mould, each work is assembled from individually formed petals, coils and tendrils, and the marks of pressure and firing are left visible.

Her forms draw on plants, sea life and the human body. She uses the structures of flowers, leaves, seed pods and corals as a visual language for ideas about growth, protection and change.

Across three series, the work moves from polished and carved stoneware surfaces held on one body, to closed forms with small openings into broken interiors, to thin white porcelain that opens outward. The resulting objects sit somewhere between specimen and body, like organisms still in the process of growing.

Assembling porcelain petals in the studio
Preparatory pencil drawing
Assembling a porcelain flower head in the studio
The shared studio in London

CV

Ayse Akdemir

Born in 1994, Colorado, USA.
Lives and works in Istanbul.

Open Studios

June 2026Open Studio. Studio Pottery London, Belgravia, London.
November 2025Open Studio. Studio Pottery London, Belgravia, London.
May 2025Open Studio. Studio Pottery London, Belgravia, London.

Training and Studio Practice

2026–presentIndependent ceramic studio practice, Istanbul.
2024–26Studio Member, Studio Pottery London, Belgravia, London.
2024–25Technical development in handbuilding, materials and firing. Private study with Royal College of Art graduates, London.
2022–24Private ceramic tuition, Istanbul.

Education

2026Contemporary Art and Art History, short courses (online), Sotheby's Institute of Art.
2020MPS, Fashion Merchandising and Retail Management, LIM College, New York.
2018BA, International Trade and Management, Marmara University, Istanbul.

Research

2015–16Research Assistant, MIT Mobile Experience Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. Design research under Federico Casalegno.