Tabliashvili’s Fairytale beyond Illusions
Giorgi Tabliashvili is a humble painter in his 30s who has a gift from nature and ,seemingly, cannot stop working. As the German phrase goes, work sets you free. He says he is open to inner freedom, which in turn produces genuine art pieces. GEORGIA TODAY went to meet him at his solo exhibition at newly opened Grandpa Shaqro Bookshop.
Having worked in different group exhibitions, and also with several solo exhibitions abroad to his credit, Giorgi says that, “Art is a way to free yourself from the captivity of an illusory world and is rather the process of creative searching for truth, hidden in the details of objects and events, apart from those attractive deceptions. This is my way to catharsis, if you will – an attempt to reach self-forgiveness and to forgive others, as well as an attempt to feel harmony and the beginning of the universe.”
The exhibition features the painter’s old and new works including the largest wall of the bookshop itself, featuring angels hanging books on a washing-line and phrases written above them: “Heaven starts on Earth,” “Live to tell, “Escape your cage- be individual,” “Dare to feel good.”
The series of angels, girls with birds, and horses demonstrate that the painter has retained a childish purity and cleanness… His pictures are rich in color, particularly his peculiar crimson and dark azure and are quite phantasmagoric. Even though he has combatted illusions, I dare say the painter still sees the beauty even in this sometimes quite grey world of ours.
However, his maturity is evident, too, well read in his abovementioned messages.
“I try to make my audience find their own selves,” Tabliashvili told GEORGIA TODAY. “I also try to find and reveal myself. My aim is to make people feel spiritual connections. A painter should be very educated; from pure geometry to psychology. The laws of art are based on the laws of nature and he universe. All of them belong to nature – color, proportion, geometry… Here, purely intuitive things are also involved– the so-called 6th sense. I try to fit my paintings to my disposition as much as I can and to see the inner essence of this or that object; to tell the story.”
Tabliashvili sees the function of an artist in making human beings and the universe better. “A good storyteller should have a good listener, too. For me, as an artist, the pain that stays on the canvas is a remedy. For every painter, the puzzle to solve is the maximal concurrence of form and content. However, one does not exclude the other. For me, an expressionistic approach is more topical. Impressionism is the thirst for life, for instance, Cezanne painted with depth, volume, love of life…”
GEORGIA TODAY asked the artist which comes first for him in painting figures, particularly female figures– appearance or inner beauty? “First and foremost, a woman is the mother of new life. In her, all the signs of universal beauty are accumulated. God created Woman after Man, so she is much more perfect a creature than a man is, though the latter has his own advantages compared to the former. Appearance, I think, is the only supplement to make a woman’s essence perfect in order to culminate her depth and charm.”
One can see Giorgi Tabliashvili’s works on: http://bu.com.ge/geo/news/story/158-14-oqtombers-shaqro-babuas-tsignis-maghaziashi-giorgi-tabliashvilis-gamofena-gaikhsneba
WHERE: GrandPa Shaqro Bookshop, 17b Chavchavadze Ave., Vake
WHEN: Closes October 21
Maka Lomadze