We may infinitely continue this intellectual game and keep on finding more and more art-historical parallels and prototypes, without establishing any direct source. No work of Dideba’s is an imitation of the Renaissance portraiture, but a visual synthesis, supplied by memory. The Tbilisi-born artist must have also been inspired by everyday scenes from Georgian life. Although pointing to the Renaissance, Dideba’s paintings possess an unmistakeably Georgian quality: cheerful, philosophical and celebrating life. These visions, memories and impressions have been transformed and elevated by the artist’s imagination. As he once himself acknowledged, “my chief goal is to transform the mundane and the realistic into something special and elevated”. As a result, each painting turns into something mythical, monumental and replete with visual allusions. Dideba does appropriate visual idioms of the Renaissance and Early Baroque art, but he also displays extreme technical mastery in adapting the imprimatura, a multi-layer Renaissance technique, requiring skill, patience and knowledge of pigment properties, to his artistic and expressive purposes. Dideba displays same mastery in his non- figurative compositions to an astonishing effect. His geometrically and colouristically complex abstractions take on new contemplative and expressive dimensions. The painterly surface radiates light, adding to the mysteriousness, emotion and depth of the artwork, as can be seen in the Autumn Prelude (Night), (2017). Being so steeped in the history of art and Georgian culture, Dideba is, nevertheless, no stranger to present-day life and contemporary
culture. His works are capable of stirring a completely different set of visual associations in European viewers: with all their painstaking technique and elaborate finish, they may surprisingly resemble of Grant Wood paintings! Think American Gothic (1931) or Parson Weem’s Fable (1939): similar proportions, facial expressions and a comparable deal of eccentricity! We would probably leave it here, encouraging you to enjoy the works and make up your own mind.
Mamuka Dideba’s first solo London exhibition, titled The Magical Worlds of Mamuka Dideba was organised by Katrine Levin Galleries at Shapero Rare Books Gallery, 32 St George St, Mayfair, London W1S 2EA, in June 2019.
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