About
Balakrishna Vallepu is a ceramic artist from Andhra Pradesh, India, whose practice moves between functional pottery and sculptural ceramics. His work explores form, memory, identity and belonging through clay, drawing from everyday objects, South Indian visual traditions, architecture and lived experience.
His journey to ceramics has taken several turns. After studying business management in Bengaluru and international management at ESC Dijon in France, he lived and worked in Germany for over a decade. He eventually stepped away from corporate life to pursue yoga, before finding his way to clay. What began as a new direction gradually grew into a sustained artistic practice, opening up possibilities for exploration through form, material and making.
He began his pottery journey at Thomas the Potter in Goa under the mentorship of Thomas Louis. Over time, his relationship with clay developed beyond the making of functional objects into a broader exploration of form, material and meaning.
He drew on South Indian visual culture, including temple architecture, kolam, textiles and ornament, and on a life lived between India and Germany.
YOGAMPOTTERY studio
He went on to establish Yogam Pottery, in 2019 a fully equipped pottery studio in Bengaluru, which he ran for nearly five years. The studio became a space for making, teaching and sharing the ceramic arts through regular classes and workshops. He also conducted seminars and pottery sessions at institutions including Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Canadian International School and at various corporate events.
After nearly five years of running Yogam Pottery in Bengaluru, Balakrishna closed the studio in Nov 2025 and moved to his hometown of Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. This transition marked a new chapter in his practice, allowing him to focus more deeply on his own artistic work, explore new directions in ceramics, and develop projects that bring together functional pottery and conceptual art.
On the name
Yogam means the act of doing without expecting. Working with clay asks for knowledge and patience, and above all the ability to cope with failure, so the process matters more than the result. That idea still shapes how he works.
Over the following years alongside his functional pottery practice, his work has expanded into sculpture and installation. He started exploring the relationship between form, material, memory and identity.
His installation Topographies of the Self was shown in 'Once Upon a Time' at Chitrakala Parishath, Bengaluru, in 2025. In 2026 he was in residence for 3 months at Ceramic Kingdom, Berlin, where he showed What Remains?, a body of work on language, memory and transformation. His research on language, value and hierarchy in Indian ceramics will be presented at the ICAF RŪPĀNTAR conference at IIT Bombay in December 2026.