Ayse Akarca

Ayse U Akarca is a scientist and painter, based in London where she balances making art with her career in research at one of the world’s leading laboratories at UCL.
Over recent years, Ayse has been working on numerous research projects on cancer, and her amazing discoveries not only led to her first scientific publication but also creations of her artworks.
As Ayse has progressed with her scientific discoveries, she has become a pioneer in one particular immunohistochemistry technique, and as such her research and collaborations with other European research groups has grown even wider. With the evolution of Ayse’s scientific work came a range of emotions, thoughts and messages that she has continued to capture in her art.
Working with different cancer tissues, faced with the reality of what this disease is and the effect it has on people’s lives, Ayse is constantly made to think about mortality – and the fine line that exists between life and death. Her paintings are inspired by actual patient tumour samples and also tell the story of her own emotions while working with these samples in the laboratory. By using different painting techniques and unconventional tools, she channels these sentiments onto the canvas, with the hope ...

BSc in Biology
PhD

UCL Cancer Institute Café, London UK; May 2018 – Ongoing
Swiss Cottage Gallery, London, UK; August 2018
Swiss Cottage Gallery, London, UK; August 2017
Swiss Cottage Gallery, London, UK; August 2016