Asli Smith is a Turkish American multidisciplinary artist and designer, raised in Istanbul, and based in Brooklyn, New York, with a background in illustration, surface design, and textiles.
Asli’s design practice draws on Anatolian textile and weaving traditions, creating contemporary textile expressions informed by the region’s myths, histories, and material culture. In her artwork, she uses weaving, natural dyes, and reconstructed surfaces informed by time spent in Turkiye that deepened her connection to weaving and material process.
Asli has worked as an art director & illustrator for branding & design studios in NYC. Her illustrations have appeared in design publications, window displays, and textiles. She has participated in group exhibitions and art fairs in Turkiye and internationally. Kosmos Rug Collection, which she designed for Atlas Harran, was selected as winner of Floor Coverings Category of the Edida Awards (2021) by Elle Decoration. Her woven paintings were on view at the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial as part of the New Civic Rituals Section in 2020. She had her first solo exhibition Solar at Kale Tasarım ve Sanat Merkezi in Istanbul in 2021. She was the creative director and and co-founder of Studio Marmi, a textile design studio based in Istanbul & Los Angeles that produced handcrafted contemporary rugs.
Asli holds master’s degree in Communications Design from Pratt Institute and has completed the Fine Arts program at the Parsons School of Design.
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Asli’s art practice centers on the changing relationship between light and color, revealed through slow, tactile processes rooted in material exploration.
She creates her woven paintings by producing two individual works on paper, cutting them apart, and interlacing the fragments into new configurations. This process of doing and undoing mirrors the shifting nature of recollection; how moments, encounters, and dreams are held in the mind not as fixed images but as layered impressions that blend, dissolve, and reappear. The woven surface becomes a place where these fragments meet, overlap, and create new alignments. She often works with botanical dyes, rust transfers, and plant-based imprints gathered from her surroundings, allowing the materials to carry traces of place and time.
Periods spent returning to Turkiye introduced Asli to weaving and deepened her engagement with natural dye practices. While distinct from the textile methods she learned, her woven paintings draw on the material awareness shaped through these experiences, particularly an understanding of how color, process, and time interact. -
Hempla Sanctuary, Installation, Roca London Gallery, London Design Festival (2025)
Hempla Sanctuary, Installation, Milan Design Week (2025)
Beyond Perception, Lume Studios, New York, NY (2024)
Material Matters, London Design Festival (2025)
Sinopia Exhibition, Pigments, Colors and Ideas Symposium at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey (2023)
Theory of Bloom, Buyukdere35, Istanbul, Turkey (2023)
Maison et Objet, Signature Hall, Studio Marmi - Ki Collection, Paris (2023)
The Other Art Fair, Saatchi Art, Knockdown Center, Queens, NY (2022)
Music is Art Festival, Yapi Kredi Bomontiada, Istanbul, Turkey (2022)
Winner of EDIDA Turkey 2021 (Elle Decoration International Design Awards) Floor Covering Category (2021)
Halkbank Turkey Summit, Zero Waste Exhibition, Istanbul, Turkey (2021)
Solar; Of the Sun, solo exhibition, Kale Tasarim Sanat Merkezi, Istanbul, Turkey (2021)
Atigin lhtimalleri: Bicim ve Surec, online exhibition at kaletasarimsanatmerkezi.org, (2021)
5th Istanbul Design Biennial, Civic Rituals, Atlas Harran exhibition, lnbetween Design Space, Istanbul, Turkey (2020)
Genetic Codes of Turkish Design at Istanbul Airport, Istanbul, Turkey(2020)Salon Akaratler Exhibition, Akaretler Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey(2019)
Good Design Izmir Exhibition, Izmir, Turkey(2019)
Design Week Turkey, Halic Kongre Merkezi, Istanbul, Turkey(2018)
Stockholm Design Week - The Swedish Institute - 25 hours Design Program, Stockholm, Sweeden(2018)
Bosphorous Summit, Istanbul, Turkey (2018)
Casa Platform by Platform Magazine during Milan Design Week, Milan, ltaly(2018)
American Illustration Exhibition, Angel Orensanz Center, New York, NY, USA (2015)
American Illustration 34 Winner, 2014
Exhibition Archive
