Homecoming

Galeri Soyut presents Eve Dönüş (Homecoming), a solo exhibition by the ceramic artist Olgu Sümengen Berker, from 30 October to 11 November 2026. Room B of the gallery's Çankaya space in Ankara holds 14 hand-built sculptures in high-fired stoneware and porcelain. The figures start from the mother goddess images of Anatolian heritage and recast them as personal, present-day readings of the female body. The opening is on 30 October from 6pm to 8pm, and entry is free.

Each figure goes through several firings, gathering layers of glaze, gold lustre, slip, decals and transfer prints on its skin. At the entrance, Altın sayfa 4 (2026) is a seated stoneware figure with bent knees and hands raised over the head, its matt clay meeting a dark, glossy glaze. Geçmiş 1 (2026) stands upright, with turquoise glaze running down its body in vertical bands. On the floor, the reclining Sayfa 4 carries a red print of tree branches and map lines across its back.

Further in, white Limoges porcelain takes over. Sayfa 17 joins its broken lines with gold in the kintsugi manner and bears handwriting cut into the body. Sayfa 19-1 (2026) sets terracotta-red glazed pieces against black porcelain. In İç Işık (2025), an LED source inside the porcelain shell sends warm yellow light out between the knees and folded arms. The artist treats each figure as a page of a diary, drawing on photographs from daily walks, maps of journeys and short written notes. Life in another country gives the series its themes of home, belonging and distance.

Born in Isparta in 1978, Olgu Sümengen Berker studied ceramics at Anadolu University to master's level and took a proficiency in art degree at Hacettepe University. She taught at Afyon Kocatepe University and then at Çankaya University until 2017, the year she became an associate professor. Her awards include a Gold Plaque at MIKS 21 in Croatia in 2021 and prizes at the State Ceramics Competition in 2007 and 2012. She now teaches ceramics and art at an arts and crafts centre at NATO's Brunssum headquarters in the Netherlands, and works in her own studio in Gangelt, Germany.