Artists: Ana Gzirishvili, Nina Kintsurashvili, Charles Degeyter
Exhibition title: Field for Prey
Venue: Gallery Artbeat, Tbilisi, Georgia
Date: September 13 – October 25, 2024
Photography: all images courtesy of the artists and Gallery Artbeat, Tbilisi
Gallery Artbeat is pleased to present ‘Field for Prey’, the first installment of a collaborative group show with Tatjana Pieters Gallery featuring works by Ana Gzirishvili, Nina Kintsurashvili and Charles Degeyter. The second iteration of the show will take place in March 2025, at Tatjana Pieters Gallery in Ghent.
‘Field for Prey’ constructs a multilayered narrative that symbolically examines the interplay between nature and human culture, focusing on how entities are shaped through their interactions with both the natural world and human influence. It weaves a transitional narrative that explores how humans attempt to create spaces for communication with other living organisms and the ways in which they try to tame, instrumentalize, or objectify nature. The exhibition opens up the possibility for complex relationships between these forces, where cultural landscapes and the natural world coexist in a dynamic and ever-evolving tension. As such, the exhibition acts as a catalyst for examining broader themes of agency, control, and the shifting boundaries between human and non-human domains.
‘Field for Prey’ creates an ambivalent space where the roles of hunter and hunted are in constant flux. By shifting viewpoints and scales, it transforms the observer’s perspective, raising the question: Who is the prey, and who is the hunter? This fluidity challenges fixed identities and disrupts hierarchies between humans and the natural world. Emphasizing the interconnectedness of species and the complexity of these relationships, it examines how human and non-human entities continuously shape and redefine one another. The focus on interconnected structures aligns with the theme of shifting roles between the hunter and the hunted.
‘Field for Prey’ brings together three distinct yet conceptually intertwined artistic practices: Nina Kintsurashvili’s paintings, Charles Degeyter’s sculptures and reliefs, and Ana Gzirishvili’s sculptural installations. Despite their different formats, the works collectively create an intermedia space where pictorial and three-dimensional objects interact within a networked structure. The represented works rethink the hierarchization of genres by translating them into a rhizomatic principle. Whether in still life, hunting scenes, or landscapes, these genres emerge as new forms of ideas. The still life becomes a process of capture, where the object, akin to a sarcophagus, exists in tension between exposure and preservation. Meanwhile, the landscape transcends its passive role, actively engaging in posthuman discourse by highlighting the complex interplay between nature and culture. This approach reflects a broader rethinking of traditional genres through the lens of human subjectivity, examining how natural and cultural landscapes are filtered through human interpretation.
Ana Gzirishvili (born 1992, Tbilisi, Georgia) lives and works in Tbilisi. Ana studied at the Tbilisi Art Academy and was a DAAD scholar and a graduate of the Universität der Künste Berlin, New Media & Film Class.
Gzirishvili’s experimental practice spans installation, sculpture, film, CGI, poetry, and reading performances. Inspired by an object-oriented perspective, she explores the liminal spaces and juncture points between beings, places, and objects, as well as between material and immaterial realms. Often, Gzirishvili’s work draws from themes such as transitionality, circulation, and displacement. By disassembling and reassembling objects and contexts both physically and intangibly, Ana observes the entanglements, incongruences, and hybrid forms that emerge from these interactions. Ana has exhibited her work in Georgia and internationally, including at West den Haag; E.A. Shared Space, Tbilisi; LC Queisser, Tbilisi; Kristina Kite Gallery, Los Angeles, USA; MAXXI, Rome, Italy; and Kopavogur Art Museum, Reykjavík, Iceland, among others.
Nina Kintsurashvili (born 1992) is a Tbilisi based interdisciplinary artist and painter who earned her BFA in painting from The Tbilisi State Academy of Arts and an MFA in Intermedia from The University of Iowa through Fulbright award.
Nina’s works have been exhibited in Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography (Mestia, Georgia), LC Queisser (Tbilisi, Georgia), E.A. Shared Space (Tbilisi, Georgia), Arco Madrid (Madrid, Spain), PS1 Iowa City, Levitt Gallery UofI (Iowa City, US), Ortega y Gasset Projects (NY,US), Everywoman Biennial (London, UK), Ekru Projects (Kansas City, US).
Charles Degeyter is an interdisciplinary artist based in Belgium. Working with traditional and contemporary production methods ranging from engravings, and taxidermy to 3D printing and lasercutting, Degeyter’s work delves into contrasting subjects such as anthropology and popular culture. His work often blurs the boundaries between these two constructs, emphasizing the enduring social relevance of anthropological artefacts and rituals in the present day. With diverse references, ranging from Egyptian sarcophagi and fossil plaques to squeaky toys, his work challenges traditional canonical models of art history.
Selected exhibitions include ‘Finis Terrae’, organised by Geukens & De Vil, Antwerp (BE), Wunderkammer of Truth, Ghent University Museum (BE), ‘Going Down’, Northern-Southern, Austin (US), ‘Search Party’, Tatjana Pieters, Ghent (BE), ‘the Crawling Space’, Tatjana Pieters, Ghent (BE), ‘Kunstenfestival LOSS’, SABK, Zottegem (BE), Sint-Baafs Cathedral, Ghent (BE), ‘PASS’ curated by Kris Martin & Jan Hoet jr., Vlaamse Ardennen (BE), Verbeke Foundation, Kemzeke (BE) and ‘No Pop No Up’ by Jan Hoet jr., Ghent (BE).
