L evan Lagidze is one of Georgia’s most significant living artists with work in the permanent collections of major museums including the Tretyakov Gallery and Museum of Modern Art in Russia, the National Picture Gallery in Georgia, and the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in the United States. Born in 1958 in Tbilisi, Georgia (then part of the Soviet Union), Lagidze graduated from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 1981. He served as Chairman of Georgia´s Young Artists’ Union from 1986 to 1989 and in the early 1990s supported struggling Georgian artists in the turbulent decade following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He is widely collected worldwide.
“The earth is as important as the sky”
Inspired by Georgia’s landscapes and cityscapes, Lagidze’s outwardly abstract compositions contain traces of the figurative. Perspective has been flattened and each element within a canvas is given equal importance. Lagidze’s aim is not to prioritise, not to ascribe secondary or primary values but to allow every fragment to form part of a universal whole, so that ‘the earth is as important as the sky’. This creates a sense of paintings within paintings, as the smaller elements within larger canvases draw the eye and appear to stand alone, creating a Labyrinthian sense of art within artworks.
“Inside every square of Levan Lagidze’s work is a separate universe”
Following a grid like structure, paint is applied thickly using a palette knife creating texture, depth, and a sense of things hidden. Often vibrant, Lagidze’s canvases reflect the multicoloured nature of the world, with blocks of colour both in the forefront and also concealed, to be re- discovered by the viewer. The rhythmic use of line and colour creates a harmony that is also echoed in his meditative series, where variations on shades of the same colour create the sensation of being drawn into an ever-unfolding depth. “Promise” is a collection of nine new works that delivers on the artist’s promise to always give us something new. Also on show are fifteen new works from the popular “My Journey” subseries of gem-like and playful small pieces (35 x 32cm) which when viewed together form a mosaic.
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