Kelly Akashi

For many artists, the studio is a vital organ of their practice—Kelly Akashi is one of them. “I’m not a post-studio artist,” said the LA-based sculptor, who is known for finessing delicate, organic forms out of glass, bronze, and wax. “I need my stuff around me.”

Last year, the Eaton Fire swept through Altadena and razed her home, studio, and the art it contained. All that remained standing was a brick chimney. A clear glass replica of that surviving structure now crowns the fifth-floor terrace of the Whitney Museum, a poignant monument to loss that is a highlight of the museum’s 2026 biennial. Akashi is also the subject of a solo exhibition, titled “Heirlooms,” nearby at Lisson Gallery. The presentation evokes grief—the titular work is a large recreation of an inherited ring she lost in the fire—but also holds the possibility of renewal, expressed in dense networks of plant roots sculpted from glass, and bronze blooms erupting from cast fingertips.

Akashi has a new studio now, but she is still without many of the tools she used to reach for, including stone carving files that require international travel to source and replace. The experience led her to think more expansively about how “the things we keep in our life” are all tools, in a way. Heirlooms, for example, are tools for accessing “our ancestors, our cultural past,” she said. “Things can be emotional tools, things can be familial tools.”

Below are some of the tools—lost and recovered, practical and emotional—that have shaped Akashi’s practice.