Büldan Öner Seka

Buldan Seka was born in Skopje, Macedonia. She immigrated to Turkey with her family and was raised in Istanbul. Seka has lived in the United States since 1963. She has been married for 36 years, and has two grown daughters.

As a young woman Seka studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul. After coming to the United States she studied ceramics at various art centers, with several instructors, and worked in her own professional studio in Berkeley, California. Fifteen years ago she started making her large ceramic sculpture in earnest. She studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts, and is currently the artist-in-residence at the college. Her larger sculptures are made on campus, but are glazed, fired, finished and polished in her home studio.

Seka has been working with clay for over forty years. She loves the process this work entails, and reports feeling happiest when creating and sharing her own work. It is her passion. Seka feels that art belongs not only in museums and galleries, but also to all people. She contends that art should be put in places where people and touch and interact with it. For this reason, Seka has displayed the majority of her work in the front yard of her Berkeley, California home. Her sculptures are larger than life, colorful, strange, beautiful, and fascinating to look at. The subject matter of Seka's work covers an infinite range. A walk through her yard reveals, among numerous delights, ceramic goddesses and coiling serpents, wild women and large men, magic carpets and a lone large breasted blue chicken.

Seka's larger ceramic works are constructed in several large pieces that are fired separately and then fitted together. The work is painstaking and time consuming, with the larger pieces taking six to eight months to complete. The smaller sculptures, detailed and colorful, are generally comprised of one, or two interlocking sections.

Seka states that her love of ceramics involves a life-long passion for the creative process. She believes that her body acts as a vehicle through which emotion, thoughts, and creative expression are transported into the skillful ceramic work. Often her work evokes a strong emotional response in the viewer. "My work has qualities which evoke emotion and curiosity. People respond to them as they would to larger than life-size humans, as spirits in the flesh, not just works of clay."

When asked what would consider a success for her art, Seka replied, "If my art work can and will arrest your attention for a second, take you out of your own world and transport you into mine. If I could manage to put a little smile on your lips, than I would say that I am an artist who has achieved."





	home > about the artist Buldan Seka was born in Skopje, Macedonia. She immigrated to Turkey with her family and was raised in Istanbul. Seka has lived in the United States since 1963. She has been married for 36 years, and has two grown daughters. As a young woman Seka studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul. After coming to the United States she studied ceramics at various art centers, with several instructors, and worked in her own professional studio in Berkeley, California. Fifteen years ago she started making her large ceramic sculpture in earnest. She studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts, and is currently the artist-in-residence at the college. Her larger sculptures are made on campus, but are glazed, fired, finished and polished in her home studio. Seka has been working with clay for over forty years. She loves the process this work entails, and reports feeling happiest when creating and sharing her own work. It is her passion. Seka feels that art belongs not only in museums and galleries, but also to all people. She contends that art should be put in places where people and touch and interact with it. For this reason, Seka has displayed the majority of her work in the front yard of her Berkeley, California home. Her sculptures are larger than life, colorful, strange, beautiful, and fascinating to look at. The subject matter of Seka's work covers an infinite range. A walk through her yard reveals, among numerous delights, ceramic goddesses and coiling serpents, wild women and large men, magic carpets and a lone large breasted blue chicken. Seka's larger ceramic works are constructed in several large pieces that are fired separately and then fitted together. The work is painstaking and time consuming, with the larger pieces taking six to eight months to complete. The smaller sculptures, detailed and colorful, are generally comprised of one, or two interlocking sections. Seka states that her love of ceramics involves a life-long passion for the creative process. She believes that her body acts as a vehicle through which emotion, thoughts, and creative expression are transported into the skillful ceramic work. Often her work evokes a strong emotional response in the viewer. "My work has qualities which evoke emotion and curiosity. People respond to them as they would to larger than life-size humans, as spirits in the flesh, not just works of clay." When asked what would consider a success for her art, Seka replied, "If my art work can and will arrest your attention for a second, take you out of your own world and transport you into mine. If I could manage to put a little smile on your lips, than I would say that I am an artist who has achieved."