Mesut Öztürk

Acıbadem, Istanbul

For the fourth episode of Istanbul Stories, we visit Mesut Öztürk at his studio in Acıbadem.

Tucked away on a quiet street, the studio feels less like a workplace and more like an extension of Mesut himself. Shelves are lined with ceramic forms at different stages of completion; sketches, tools, and collected objects occupy every available surface. He describes it as both his safe space and his playground. "The moments I'm here are the moments I'm happy," he says.

What first drew him to the material was its openness. A retrospective exhibition of Füreya Koral revealed the seemingly endless possibilities of clay: it could become sculpture, a vessel, a wall piece. For Mesut, whose interest in forms and volumes had already been shaped by architecture, ceramics offered a space where functionality, craft, design, and artistic expression could coexist.

His practice emerged somewhere in between these categories. Neither entirely artist, designer, nor craftsperson, Mesut creates one-of-a-kind forms that evolve through intuition as much as planning. The playful vases that first brought wider recognition reference ancient Anatolian and Mesopotamian ceramics while transforming them into contemporary characters — geometric, symmetrical, and quietly humorous.

We talk with Mesut about collecting, improvisation, and learning to trust forms as they reveal themselves. We also speak about migration, belonging, and the certainty that emerged after years of moving between cities: if given the choice, he would still choose Istanbul. "You could lay the whole world out in front of me," he says, "and I'd still choose to live in Istanbul. I'd choose Kadıköy."