Art Dubai
March, 2023

For the fairs '23 edition, we are presenting amazing cast of young Georgian artists : Gvantsa Jishkariani, Mariam Aqubardia, together with living legend of Georgian Art - Malkhaz Gorgadze works, most of which were specially created for the Fair! Despite the fact that these artists at first glance have radically different working methods, common threads can be identified though their works.

Above-mentioned artists are all interested in traditional craft, from which they draw inspiration and then interpret it in their own way. There is an interesting dialogue between the works presented on the stand - on the one hand, the dialogue of generations, on the other hand, Malkhaz Gorgadze, as a representative of the generation of Soviet Georgian artists, whose visual legacy has become so influential for a new generation of Georgian contemporary artists, such as Gvantsa Jishkariani and Mariam Aqubardia.

There is an interesting interplay with the materials that the above-mentioned artists work in. Malkhaz Gorgadze, as a representative of the ‘Soviet Golden Age’ artists, works on monumental scale and produces heavy works, both visually and physically. He paints his idyllic compositions on wooden panels overlaid with cloth. Gorgadze muses on philosophical concepts employing simplified figurative compositions that remind of the Mexican mural paintings. 

Mariam Aqubardia’s large scale paintings are in an interesting conversation with Gorgadze’s; both having excellent knowledge in academic painting, work through the obtained information and construct their unique signature styles. For Gorgadze it is simplified figurative compositions, reminding of both Mexican mural paintings and naive art, for Aqubardia it is photographic realism and abstract painting that she plays between and produces enchanting figurative compositions with a technique of blurring. Aqubardia’s Art is quite personal - it revolves around her own experiences, memories and pains, but then is elevated into a more generalised, universal quality.

Malkhaz Gorgadze has been painting for all of his life, but it was largerly an unknown fact to wider circles; he held his first solo show in 2020 at The Why Not Gallery. However, he had a successful creative career and was mainly known for his large scale outdoor commissions around Georgia. Many of the monumental mosaic and relief panoramas Gvantsa Jishkariani grew up admiring, were actually created by Malkhaz Gorgadze. According to Jishkariani, those were her first encounters with art that have affected her so intensely, that she grew up to become an artist. Jishkariani was one the first artists to dare and return to mosaic art, so strongly associated with Soviet period in local context and despised because of that. She researches through the tradition of the craft, carefully studies history and then produces her own interpretations in a strongly defined visual language. Her works often deal with her personal emotions and experiences, as well as reflect socio-political conditions of present-day Georgia.