Meet the Artists Behind Yufi

Introducing the artists, rhythms, and thoughts behind Yufi Art Studio

Majakovski 5, Centar Skopje

Welcome to Yufi Art Studio’s first post.

We’re Aylin Bilgiç, Murat Kalkavan, and Belkıs Aksu — three artists currently living and working in Skopje, North Macedonia. After years of developing our practices individually, we came together to create a shared space for artistic dialogue, experimentation, and daily rhythm.

Yufi Art Studio was born out of that shared desire:
A studio where disciplines meet, boundaries blur, and process matters as much as the outcome.

Aylin Bilgiç

Aylin is a ceramic artist whose practice revolves around texture, form, and material memory. She studied Ceramics and Glass at Marmara University’s Faculty of Fine Arts, and developed her work in artist workshops such as the VitrA Ceramic Art Studio. Her approach is grounded in physicality and subtle transformation — letting clay and glass speak through their surfaces. In Skopje, she continues to explore tactile storytelling through sculptural forms.

Murat Kalkavan

Murat is an illustrator and visual artist born in 1983. After graduating from Marmara University’s Faculty of Fine Arts, he created illustrations for advertising agencies, publishing houses, and indie games — often serving as art director. His visual world blends humor, color, and emotion through bold lines and expressive characters. Now working from our shared studio, he continues to develop a distinctive, narrative-driven style with a playful edge.

Belkıs Aksu

Belkıs is a visual artist and storyteller whose work combines painting, drawing, and narrative structures. She creates story-driven, hand-painted works that often explore people, urban rhythms, and the quiet absurdities of everyday life. Alongside her visual practice, she publishes a bilingual illustrated newsletter called Spontane Polemik, where irony meets watercolor. From her desk in Skopje, she continues to blur the line between image and language.

So, what is Yufi?

Yufi Art Studio is not just a place where we work — it’s a shared rhythm.
It’s where we overlap in ideas, methods, and materials.
Where we drink tea, overthink a brushstroke, forget what day it is, and keep going anyway.

This newsletter is our digital extension of that space.
A place where we share:

• our works-in-progress,

• the stories behind them,

• and the thoughts that move us forward (or sideways).

We’ll post twice a month — sometimes solo, sometimes together.
If you’re someone who’s curious about how art gets made, and why it keeps being made, we hope you’ll stick around.

Thanks for joining us.

See you in the next post,
Yufi Art Studio