“Stories from the Playground” - New Exhibition at Patara Gallery

In her new exhibition, presenting at Patara Gallery (meaning Small Gallery in Georgian) from 13 to 27 of April, Tamar Nadiradze illustrates the state of today’s society at the intersection of post-apocalyptic grotesque. The artist’s works are based on real life stories.  The inspiration Nadiradze gets from everyday reality, is transformed into surrealistic watercolor drawings and collages through her splendid imagination – making her exhibition a really unique, almost fairy-tale-like experience.
Visual wise, Tamar Nadiradze’s these pieces were inspired by the aesthetics of children picture books and folktales – probably this explains the exhibition title “Stories from the Playground.” Tamar’s art works in favor of reminding the society once more how the city life, culture, social behavior, ecology, human rights, and ideologies are merging with one another and in this process, are affecting themselves.
The works were created during her stay at K.A.I.R. Košice Artist in Residence, (Košice, Slovakia).

Tamar Nadiradze, born in 1991, belongs to the young generation of artists. Having finished her bachelor studies at the Department of Book Illustration and Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tbilisi and her MA at the Centre of Contemporary art – Tbilisi, now Nadiradze systematically exams and processes social topics in her works. Her focus also falls upon her own identity and everyday life situations in the contexts of contemporary art. The result of her artistic research is often experimental publications and/or drawings and illustrations.

Patara Gallery is presumably the smallest gallery in Tbilisi, located in the most unusual space – underground passageway. As their page claims, Patara Gallery is “an ordinary underpass shop, transformed to an art gallery, invites artists to find new forms, to try out
new ideas, to take over the gallery space, to experiment, perform or showcase their works without
limitations.”

By Nini Dakhundaridze