Galeri Nev Istanbul readies to host the latest creations of the ceramic artist Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye between February 25 and March 28
Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye, whose works are part of 36 museum collections worldwide, brings her latest creations to Galeri Nev Istanbul after exhibiting at Fondation Cartier (Paris) and Pierre Marie Giraud (Brussels). Opening on February 25, the exhibition features a collection of bowls crafted in 2024, predominantly in white tones. These pieces, produced in different sizes, are presented in a minimalist setting.
Ebüzziya’s new works invite the audience to observe the subtle shifts within repetition and simplicity. The bowls, with delicate colored rims, exhibit a refined diversity in tones and sizes, allowing each piece to establish its own rhythm and language.
For nearly six decades, Ebüzziya has crafted her iconic high-fired bowls using the ancient coiling technique and a wooden kick wheel. These vessels, which bear the artist’s distinctive touch, gain the hardness and permanence of stone through intense firing. The bowls’ small, nearly invisible bases give the impression of floating, hidden beneath wide, curving forms. Sharp, thin rims accentuate the strength and delicacy of the ceramic, while typically being glazed in a single color with minimal decoration. Horizontal lines near the rim or just beneath it serve to anchor the form.
Ebüzziya’s approach gives her bowls a quality, as their small, almost invisible bases appear to lift them off the ground, hidden beneath broad, flowing curves. The sharp edges of the bowls accentuate the thinness and strength of the ceramic walls, with the rims subtly flaring outward, drawing light into the dark emptiness within. Typically glazed in a single color, the bowls are minimally decorated, aside from horizontal lines around the rim or just beneath it—lines that visually “anchor” the form, as though preventing it from floating away.
These works, regardless of their dimensions, possess a monumental presence, revealing a delicate tension and balance between contrasting forces: density and lightness, durability and fragility, power and stillness.
Born in Istanbul in 1938, Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye studied sculpture at the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts between 1956 and 1958. She gained early experience working at a ceramics factory in Höhr-Grenhausen and the Eczacıbaşı Art Studio in Istanbul.
In 1963, she moved to Copenhagen, where she began designing for Royal Copenhagen, the renowned Danish Royal Porcelain Factory. Ebüzziya opened her first studio in Copenhagen in 1969 and debuted with her first solo exhibition at Galerie Birkdam in 1971. After relocating to Paris in 1987, where she continues to live, the artist was honored with retrospective exhibitions at the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Copenhagen in 2002.
Throughout her career, Ebüzziya has received numerous awards, including the Danmarks Nationalbank’s Anniversary Foundation Honorary Award and the Aydın Doğan Award in 2022. Her works are part of the collections of leading institutions worldwide, such as the Victoria & Albert Museum (London), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles), Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Paris), Kunstgewerbemuseum (Cologne), and Fondation Cartier (Paris), as well as museums in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Zurich, Hannover, and many more.
Visit the Exhibition:
• When: February 25 – March 28, 2025
• Where: Galeri Nev Istanbul, İstiklal Caddesi, Mısır Apartmanı
• Admission: Galeri Nev Istanbul
