Painting after Wall Painting at E.A. Shared Space

Artists: Shota Aptsiauri, Levan Chogoshvili, Mariana Chkonia, Salome Dumbadze, Mariam Inashvili, Nina Kintsurashvili, Sopo Kobidze

Exhibition title: Painting after Wall Painting

Venue: E.A. Shared Space, Tbilisi, Georgia

Date: September 24 – October 29, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and E.A. Shared Space, Tbilisi

Painting after Wall Painting is a cross-generational dialogue around Georgian Christian Orthodox wall-painting tradition and its influence nowadays. The exhibition includes a historical work, such as ‘Annunciation’, 1985 by Levan Chogoshvili as an intorduction welcoming the viewer on the first wall of the exhibition space. Christian Orthodox Wall-painting tradition has stood as the main anchor for artistic communities in the search of a cultural identity during the USSR and thus comprised a strong political meaning. Yet, the tradition keeps on influencing artistic practices nowadays, creating a rich landscape of contemporary art.

Rethinking of Georgian wall-painting tradition has played an important role in Nina Kintsurashvili’s practice, where she overlooks the tradition through a post-colonial lens, asking questions around methods of erasure of memory by Russian Tsarist Empire tracing history through the literal layers of paint, and the layers of violence. Christian Orthodox traditions, as a common knowledge, identity and a cultural code can be traced thought-out the works by younger generation of artists exhibited. Dominating color scheme of blue and violet speak of influences carried from the once Devine color Lazhvardi, often used in the medieval frescoes. The exhibition is an open question, rather than a statement, asking how, if relevant, does the Georgian Medieval visual culture exist within the contemporary art practices of Georgia nowadays and how can we approach it?

-Nina Panchulidze and Elene Abashidze

Shotiko Aptsiauri (b. 1997) lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia. He has accomplished his studies at the Tbilisi Free University (VA[A]DS) between 2018 – 2015. Has been show at various local and international exhibitions and has participated at various art residencies, such as: Resi-dency Unlimited (RU) and Artists Alliance inc. (AAI) in New York City, USA.

Levan Chogoshvili (b. 1953) lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia. He studied at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts between 1970-1976. Since the early 1970’s Chogoshvili is an active actant of a so-called underground artist group, creat-ed during and in opposition of then dominant and restrictive Soviet system. Chogoshvili has been widely shown at various local and international exhibitions and is included in various collections, as well, as covered in a various local and international magazines including: Artforum, The Art Newspaper and others.

Mariana Chkonia (b. 1969) is an artist living between Tbilisi and Nukriani, Georgia. Having a background in architecture and design, Chkonia is a self-taught artist, working primarily in textile. Based on vast research in felt-making tradi-tions in South Caucasus, especially in Tusheti and Kakheti regions of Georgia, Chkonia has developed a unique language of her own. Her felt works vary be-tween sculptural and painterly qualities, dom-inated by architectural thinking. Chkonia’s works have been recently shown at various local and international exhibitions and she is currently working on her first institutional exhibition in Potsdam, Germany.

Nina Kintsurashvili (b.1992) in a family of Orthodox icon painter father, Nina Kintsurashvili is an interdisci-plinary artist and curator who earned her BFA in painting from The Tbilisi State Academy of Arts and MFA in Intermedia from The University of Iowa. Using painting and drawing as main anchors, Kintsurashvili moves through different media. Search for the post-colonial collective identity is present in the artist’s practice where her work reflects on and questions the paradoxes of the existing visual codes in the Independent Geor-gia. In her work mysticism is contrasted by human biology, archaeology with mundane contemporaneity, col-lectivity with individuality, and patriarchal past with the futurist feminist approach. Kintsurashvili’s work has been shown in Tate Modern as part of Future Late, Chicago Wetpaint Biennial in Zhou B Gallery, PS1 Iowa City, Everywoman Biennial in London and Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography in Svaneti, Georgia.

Sopo Kobidze (b. 1987) lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia. She works across painting, drawing photography and installation. She is a co-founder of multidisciplinary non-profit organizaton ‘Obscura’. her recent solo and group exhibitions include: In the Summer White Bears Awake, Kuroti, 2023, Writing With Colors, CCA, Tbili-si, 2022, La Pyramide de Ponzi, Galerie Valerie Delauniz, Paris, 2022 and others.

Salome Dumbadze (b. 1992) is an artist living in Tbilisi, Georgia. Dumbadze studied at the Tbilisi State Acad-emy of Arts and holds MFA at the informal MFA Course of CCA Tbilisi. Dumbadze subverts the languages of the heavily male-dominated world of Georgian painting through both style and subject matter. Working pre-dominantly in oil and oil-based pig-ment on canvas, Dumbadze alludes to motifs of the 12th and 13th century canonic Georgian Orthodox wall painting, especially by taking the decorative elements of organizing the space in the interior of these monasteries, such as: Timotesubani, Nikortsminda, Bertubani. Dumbadze is currently working on her first solo exhibition in Italy.

Mariam Inashvili (b. 2001) lives and works in Germany. She studied at The Visual art Architecture and design school (VA[A]DS) in Tbilisi, Georgia from 2019 until 2021. Currently studies at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf, Germany) and as a guest student at Städelschule (Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) in the class of Monika Baer. Inashvili’s works accross various media. She often uses combina-tions of materials to create her paintings such as cement, pigment, plaster, ink, and other. In her works, she expresses her way of thinking into physical forms. She tries to rebuild duality between past and future, at the same time she presents presence phenomena in her works. Inashvili repeats, alters and recreates each form and layer until it repeats itself.