Leila Shelia’s Mystic Female Art

The Georgian National Museum Dimitri Shevardnadze National Gallery opened a solo exhibition by Leila Shelia on December 6, showcasing up to 80 paintings and graphic works created by the artist at different times.

Leila Shelia was born in Sokhumi, Georgia. She graduated from Tbilisi State Academy of Art and from 1982 participated in various group exhibitions in Barcelona, Paris, Moscow, Brussels, Baku, Zürich, London and Amsterdam.

Her solo exhibitions locally have so far been held at Tbilisi History Museum (Karvasla), Gallery ‘TMS', Baia Gallery, Gala Gallery, Chardin Gallery, and TBC Gallery.

“I would like to say a special thanks to Leila Shelia for her beautiful works. Of course, for us the main thing that mattered while selecting the exposition was the high quality,” said Davit Lortpikanidze, Director General of the Georgian National Museum.

“For me, this day is very important,” said the artist. “Here you can see works I created in various years, including abstract works and graphics. I want to extend my thanks to the employees of the museum who have enabled me to display these works.”

“For me, after so many successful shows in Georgia and abroad, this is a very special day, to have my solo exposition held at the Georgian National Gallery,” she later told GEORGIA TODAY. In 2014 the artist's album was published with the support of Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia. “They say that the original Venus de Milo held a mirror in her hand…Now, this eternal resident of the Louvre has neither the mirror nor hands… This historic ‘defect’ reveals one paradox in particular: Any perception lags behind its object,” writes the art historian Davit Andriadze in the preface of Shelia’s album. ”She is as if omitting the primary layer of the visual experience. Hereby, the art historian implies that the nudes of Mrs. Shelia do not have any organs. “Maybe, this is the kind of artist that “seizes” the invisible sounds and scents… seizes with pure sight; the sight devoid of words… and at the same time, purifying our cultural sight (or the sight created by culture) from the chain-like logic of the consciousness.”

“Leila Shelia looks at this universe as at the infinity… Each color is derived from its own self and stays within its borders with Leila Shelia.”

Perhaps this is something devoid of deep male study and intellectual insights; this is a woman, already an interesting creature, and doubly interesting for her strong artistic talent that possesses a golden means not to be too subjective and autobiographically “nude”, thus maintaining the title of a mysterious woman. It seems she is not illusive, but she is a woman who has many inner layers to discover which are not shown on canvas. It has little to do with candidness, and rather more with an infinite journey into the womanly universe.

At the end of the opening, Leila Shelia presented the Georgian National Museum Dimitri Shevardnadze National Gallery with the work titled “Music”.

Where: Dimitri Shevardnadze National Gallery, 11 Shota Rustaveli Ave. Tbilisi

When: Until January 1, 2017

Maka Lomadze