Tato Akhalkatsishvili Chosen as Resident at Art Dubai 2018
Georgian Artist Tato Akhalkatsishvili from Tbilisi’s Erti Gallery has been chosen as one of the eleven international artists in the Residents 2018 program of this year’s Art Dubai.
“Residents 2018 will present an intimate selection of 11 solo gallery presentations by artists from around the world working across all media. The galleries in this section will be presented in a special exhibition between the two Contemporary gallery halls. The programme aims to support artists by providing a platform to develop their practice and create new work inspired and influenced by their stay in the UAE. Framed within a unique geographical and cultural context, Residents further aims to facilitate exchange and dialogue between artists, local communities and the broader cultural landscape.
The inaugural edition of Residents will be accompanied by a range of public events and open studios, hosted by the residency spaces, giving the public an opportunity to interact with the artists and follow the production of their works up until their presentation at Art Dubai 2018. The programme will conclude with a round-table discussion, including representatives from each of the residency spaces as well as the artists,” reads the statement on Art Dubai’s website.
Tato Akhalkasishvili was born in 1979, in Tbilisi. Graduating from Tbilisi Academy of Arts in 2003, he moved to Germany to live and work in Cologne, before coming back to Georgia in 2008. In addition to painting, he makes objects, installations and collages. Akhalkasishvili’s work expresses important issues and concepts with the help of different metaphors.
“Surreal moments, uncertainty, pain, loneliness, haunt of the past feelings, genetically accumulated experiences, search of transcendental, hope of mysterious future, subconscious childhood emotions, changes and empathy – these are indelible components of human life, which I transform into metaphors and I try to visualize them in different materials.
The landscape – a constant element of my works – serves as a mise en scene for revealing one’s mysterious life. I try to capture the fine line between blurring memories and remembrance, between recent experiences and the information kept in our sub-consciousness, a crossing point of history and memory. I want to explore the very second the mind stands between today and tomorrow, present and future, dream and awaking, reality and imagination… I often think-that the very moment may not even exist,” reads Tato’s Eriti Gallery Artist Statement
By Máté Földi