Rusudan Khizanishvili

Georgia

Tbilisi

Window Project

Painting

Landing on the Earth

Kalev and Linda _ Holy Family 

He is coming

Portrait #1

Embracing Changes

Aurora

Hide and Seek

The Knight In a Panther's Skin

Into the Flower Field

In the presented works created between 2018-2021, Rusudan Khizanishvili engages with the
themes that run as threads in her artistic practice of the last fifteen years. Women in all their
power are at the center, as are their fragmentized or altered bodies, disjointed embraces,
mysterious shadowy figures, sphynxes, and floral forms. Although they are at the center, they
remain anonymous, just as women tend to be in Georgia. Central figures on the stage are not
named in Khizanishvili’s scenography. Yet, their identities could be assumed. Dali, Medea,
Tinatin, Tamar, Nestan, Virgin Mary, Venus are all symbolically present in the faces, figures,
gestures, compositions. 

Rather than engaging with the romanticized version of the past and habitual way of painting
and perceiving women as quaint figures, Khizanishvili redefines this tradition by bringing new
dynamics into contemporary Georgian art. Alongside small-sized portraits, the artist paints
encapsulated spectacles, framed by the canvas and almost defying gravity. Here, the traditional
motherly archetype is clashing with a willful woman, who is powerful, and might be
manipulative, yet is present. The women we see are actively involved in their spectacles,
invested in the outcomes. As Dali, goddess of hunting and wilderness, Khizanishvili is able to
transform humans into wild beasts and vice versa. Transformation alludes to
the interconnectedness between humans and the Earth, transmutation between species. Ceramics
created by Khizanishvili and presented for the first time at this exhibition, also underline the
connection with the terrain through their medium. Clay objects are fragmentized and free-
standing, three-dimensional representation of Khizanishvili’s visions. A symbolic crown is every
woman’s crown, but also the crown of King Tamar. 

Khizanishvili bridges a gap between past and future, defining a new tradition. This new reaches
with its roots to the medieval frescos as well as the art of Matisse and the plasticity of Munch, while
simultaneously embodying contemporaneity of structure and figuration. The artist enamored
with the Outsider art as well as with Paola Rego, Nick Cave, Kara Walker among many others,
creates a new cannon. Her paintings and ceramics are objects to be looked at in terms of their
aesthetic quality, but also as a prompt for a discussion. By engaging with this double function of
art Khizanishvili makes a larger statement about women and their place in Georgian society.
Contemporary women have enough courage, vision, talent, stamina, and maturity, to move
beyond traditional archetypes, to embrace new identities, not tied to their upbringings, but to
their conscious choices. 

If this is packaged within Khizanishvili’s striking and sensual canvases and alluring compositions
it is up to the viewer to dig deeper and find her own truths. But the new tradition is here.

Exhibition design by Lado Lomitashvili

Curatorial text by: Nina Mdivani

Of Goddesses and Women

Of Goddesses and Women

Take 3D Tour