"The artist creates, the industry manufactures. The artist loves her work, industry transforms men into robots. The crafted art, works with human warmth, it breaths the rhythm of its creator and makes one imagine the attention it has received from her. A woman, a man, alone in their studio, in silence, taking a material like earth or wood, slowly with their bare hands, with their love, their imagination they give life to an object and this object will give life to what their deepest secrets, their most profound and intimate being. Ipek Kotan’s bowl, perfectly reveals this exchange.”
- Excerpt from “Revelations” biennial catalogue where I was represented by swissCeramics association while showing at the Grand Palais in Paris, written by Catherine Camus, published in May 2017
“Kotan’s gilded paintings are created in a state-changing period of molten glass and growing crystals. […] It is an effect so visually complex that it releases the surface from the preconceptions of “glaze” placing it between the mysterious depths of an iris and geological treasure. The grandeur of the gilded paintings are showcased by her thrown porcelain forms, specific enough to be called a bowl but ambiguous enough to be absent of direct historical references.”
- Excerpt from “Mining Gold”written by Justin Crowe, published on Cfile in August 2015
“There they are: Kotan’s elegant, elemental, and timeless vessels; familiar yet endlessly varied, quiet yet resonant, perfect but full of character, and irresistibly appealing. […] What unites them all is their restrained, dignified beauty, created by a singular personality yet deeply rooted in the anonymous history of humankind’s vessels.”
- Excerpt from “Beauty of the Bowl”written by Dr. Walter H. Lokau, featured in the July/August 2014 issue of the Ceramic Review
“Turkish born and Geneva based, Ipek Kotan (b.1977) is a breath of fresh air in the world of contemporary ceramics. […] The results are beautiful Limoges porcelain and stoneware bowls and vessels that have rich textured interiors glazed in copper and earthy tones and whose forms are drawn from traditional Mesopotamian pottery. This contrasts beautifully with the unglazed exteriors of both her Limoges pieces which are silky smooth and of her stoneware pieces that have a rough, unfinished, and slightly rustic feel to them.”