Photo: Sandro Sulaberidze
Sorry, No Flowers Here
February 5 - March 15, 2022
Tamar Gurgenidze
Gvantsa Jishkariani
The exhibition is comprised of works by young female artists Gvantsa Jishkariani, Lola, Nata Varazi, Tamar Gurgenidze and Tamara Lortkipanidze and muses on such hefty topics such as womanhood in patriarchal culture, assumptions and expectations to look up to, moulds to mutate into, and promises to fulfil.
However, instead of posing these as ideals to look up to, presented artists, with their strong energies and self-contained signature styles, challenge and pervert the supposed truths. Heartfelt journeys through generational traumas and personal quests for healing, absurd harmony of fragile beauty and yet fatal danger, poetry and sentimentality of female comradeship.
Lola
Extremely individual painting style and original technique is the defining factor that shapes the young artist's - Lola’s creative identity.
The symbolism evoked in the characteristic colour palette and in the extremely complex structures gives a magical touch to her works.
The artist extensively experiments with materials, scale or ways of exhibiting works. She employs found items, repeats from organic forms, draws directly on the walls and in this way, challenges the accepted norms of the comfort zone.
Nata Varazi
‘This series of works is created around specific feelings. I tried to visualise momentary sensations and emotions, give them physicality, so to speak. Hard and soft materials are depicted on all works. I consider metal supports to be a symbol of stability and protection, while liquid and airy substances are a symbol of sensitivity and emotionality.
In doing so, I was trying to convey my character as a woman, where heaviness and lightness, as well as other conflicting qualities not only do not exclude one another, but also complement each other. '- Nata Varazi.
Tamara Lortkipanidze
Tamara Lortkipanidze is a young artist living in Barcelona. She studied at the faculty of Multimedia Design, Tbilisi State Academy of the Fine Arts, and experimented a lot in different media before finding her visual language in painting.
Tamara’s canvases have a baroque quality to them. The richness of colour, level of refinement, perfection when it comes to the surfaces, meticulous depictions, familiar compositional solutions... yet, the resulting works are so of their moment, talking about the world around, often depicting actual people – friends and acquaintances of Tamara. And indeed, it is her immediate surroundings that inspire the artist the most, be it trendy fashion designs, stylish tattoos and piercings, socio-political realities or the taboos we only just gained courage to talk about.
Gvantsa Jishkariani
Gvantsa Jishkariani is a young multimedia artist. She experiments a lot in different materials, is interested in traditional handicrafts and forms of expression. Her works often refer to her personal emotions and experiences, as well as reflect the socio-political realities around her. The artist often uses humour to discuss deeply personal and highly relevant topics.
About Mosaics:
‘It is my portrait made of natural stone mosaic, I have a necklace in my mouth and I chew on the glass. At first, I was supposed to be holding ceramic hearts necklace, but then I realised that tenderness was absolutely not the feeling as to how I perceive myself and what I wanted to express. So I made a bead out of broken glass.
I do not see my life as a beautiful, heart-shaped path - I experience a lot of horror and pain, but I process everything, overcome it all and still survive ... This bead is very beautiful, it has a fantastic sound, but it is also very sharp and dangerous.’
About Neon:
‘Dreams themselves, at least for me, are very intimate things, very rarely I share them with anyone ... It is an extreme form of sensitivity for me, something only I know and I have experienced’- Gvantsa Jishkariani
The artwork reads:
I WAS DANCING IN MY DREAM AND I FEARED NO-ONE. IT FELT MAJESTIC, IT FELT ECSTATIC, BEAUTIFUL. I WAS EXPLODING IN JOY.
As the artist explains, the sentence was inspired by a beautiful dream she had and wanted to translate into a physical form. The pinks and purples of flickering neon heighten the poetic dimension of the text and remind of those beautiful ephemeral visions.
However, by placing the neon piece on the floor, the artist highlights the extreme fragility, both of the work and those emotions. It is as though that level of vulnerability and openness is destined to be mercilessly crushed.
And indeed, throughout the exhibition, the work was damaged multiple times. As a solution, the artist placed the sign on a strip of bricks that might be read as a metaphor for how we cope with trauma.
Tamar Gurgenidze
Tamar Gurgenidze is a young artist. Trained as a painter, she works in different media, including CGI, which offers her endless possibilities that are limited in physical space, be it the variety of materials or the degree of formal perfection.
Tamar's works are often inspired by an instant impression, which has such a strong effect on the artist that she then creates an artwork and develops the whole imaginary narrative. Naive and hilarious stories often revolve around women and evoke poignant and sensitive topics such as female solidarity or collective rebellion in an oppressive patriarchal setting.
The exhibition presents Tamar's painting ‘Pregnant Women’, 2018; The action takes place in an imaginary resort, where pregnant women are sent to rest on fresh air. On the canvas, a group of women is depicted as they stroll in nature, talking on their cell phones to their husbands and secretly smoking cigarettes. Tamar then developed the story in CGI, where she created an image of a pregnant woman inspired by antique porcelain figurines. For the exhibition, the artist recreated the model in three dimensions and presented a ceramic object ‘Pregnant Woman with a Mobile Phone’.
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