Award-winning Designer Selin Esendemir Abdian was born and raised in the city of Kütahya. Selin was first exposed to ceramics in an art class while attending a Liberal Arts college in Istanbul. She discovered a passion for this medium and continued to build her skills and expertise outside the classroom.

After college, she worked for an advertising company on creative campaigns before she started her own advertising company. During this time, Selin noticed that many of the ceramics being sold in Turkey were actually made in China. The ceramics that were made by Turkish artisans, were often viewed as only fine art and felt unapproachable and too expensive for the general buyer or casual collector. From this, a question arose: Why couldn’t there be more affordable ceramic art produced and available in Turkey? Thus, SaleenArt was born.

In 2005 a SaleenArt atlier was established in Kütahya to produce Selin’s designs. Selin gathered a team of highly skilled artisans, who had been learning the art of ceramics since childhood–a craft passed down from generation to generation. As the company grew, more people became interested in learning this craft and working at SaleenArt. SaleenArt provided intensive ceramic training to new employees and now employs 34 skilled artisans. SaleenArt’s pieces are currently available in the brick-and-mortar store located in the Sariyer area of Istanbul as well as in high-end department stores throughout Europe.