Viyan Petekkaya

Viyan Petekkaya is a Kurdish-Canadian artist with a focus on handcrafted jewellery and small metal objects. Her practice moves between concept-driven inquiry and material-led, intuitive making. Informed by modernist approaches to abstraction and compositional clarity, Petekkaya approaches jewellery as both a wearable form and an autonomous sculpture. Drawing on cultural memory and personal history, her work engages storytelling to explore questions of identity, belonging and the subtle tensions of human experience, while also allowing space for formal exploration through line, curve and sculptural presence.

Petekkaya’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at Munich Jewellery Week (2026), the leading annual event for contemporary jewellery, and at the Tucson Gem Show (2025), a major international showcase for gemstones and contemporary jewellery. She was named the Emerging Artist Category Winner at The Earring Show (2024, Craft Council of British Columbia).

She holds a Bachelor of International Economics from the University of British Columbia (2018) and a Jewellery Art & Design diploma from Vancouver Community College (2024), where she received the Craft Council of British Columbia’s Emerging Artists in Contemporary Craft Award and the Mountain Gems Artistic Achievement Award. After a decade in Vancouver, she relocated to Toronto in 2024 to join Harbourfront Centre as a full-time Artist-in-Residence, where she continues to deepen her practice while engaging in professional development opportunities and teaching public workshops. She is also a member of the Society of North American Goldsmiths–Canada Committee, supporting visibility and opportunities for Canadian jewellers.