 NostalgiaClay, underglazes, glazes, gold leaf, marble base. 21 x 7.5 x 9 in |  BlissClay, underglazes, marble base · 17 x 19 x 17 in |  White MonologueClay, white glaze, marble base. 21 x 15 x 15 in |  OrganicClay, underglazes, glazes, marble base · 8.5 x 7 x 7 in |
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 Vulnerability IClay, iron oxide, steel base. 33 x 23 x 8 in |  GenesisClay, underglazes, underglaze chalk crayons, glazes, marble base · 18 x 16 x 17 in |  EveClay, underglazes, glazes, gold leaf, stone and wood base · 14 x 14 x 13.5 in |  Fifth Dimension. Organic.Clay, iron oxide, steel base. 84 x 18 x 18 in |
 Totem Circles of Belonging (White).Clay, iron oxide, steel base · 80 x 26 x 18 in |  Fifth Dimension. Geometry. Multicolor II.Clay, iron oxide, steel base · 83 x 16 x 16 in, collaboration with artist Sara Beall |
Vera Sarycheva Smiley
Vera Sarycheva Smiley (b. Almaty, Kazakhstan) is a ceramic sculptor whose practice centers on what she calls "Connection Beyond Words": the emotional language of human experience expressed through sculptural form and the interplay of memory, place, and energy.
Born in the final years of the Soviet Union, she turned to art as a space of freedom. Sarycheva earned a BFA from the Fine Arts Faculty of Kazakh State Pedagogical University in the early 1990s, and has since lived on four continents, traveling to nearly forty countries and attending master classes around the world.
Her abstract sculptures go directly to vulnerability, not as weakness, but as what makes us human. Behind the balanced, resilient facade we present to the world lies something fragile and malleable, and her task is to make that visible. She works on intuition and improvisation, no sketches, drawing on cubist and organic motifs. Ceramics is her primary medium because it holds the contradiction at the core of her work: fragile and durable, whole and fragmented at the same time.
Her Totems series emerged from personal loss and reaches further, into time, cosmic space, and the energy that connects us to those no longer here. The works carry specific symbols: an hourglass for time, rounded planetary forms and molecular geometry for space, surrounding fields for energy. They rise in stages, the way we grow. Where the abstract work asks what it means to be human, the Totems ask what lies beyond our perception.
Sarycheva lives and works in Austin, TX, where she runs her own ceramic studio and serves on the board of the Texas Sculpture Society. She is a member of the Texas Sculpture Group and the 916 Artist Group.
She has shown nationally and internationally, at the Museum of Arts of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in solo exhibitions in Almaty, Astana, Austin, and Georgetown TX, and in group shows in Moscow, Puerto la Cruz, Toronto, Los Angeles, Dallas, Scottsdale, and Houston, including Red Dot/Spectrum Miami during Miami Art Week.
She joined Unchained.Art Contemporary Gallery in Austin in 2026.