Exhibition Kakha Chkhataraishvili
Kakha Chkhataraishvilis World of Women
Women make up more than half of the population worldwide. The world of Kakha Chkhataraishvili - in contrast - is a world of women. Man becomes an extra, a mere accessory.
The contemporary Georgian artist (born 1960, lives and works in Tbilisi) is an artist painting human beings. His vibrant paintings are dominated by clearly contoured human figures. The picture format is filled with unorthodox portraits, couples and small groups of people. Woman as a motif plays the main role in his works. Her ever changing moods is central, times a self-confident solitary, times in an irritatingly close fusion with other faces – is it the partner or another self? The back of a blue female figure, for instance, mutates into another face. Or another female figure crouching in a man’s head, a male with strong stature hiding in the shoulders of a woman, faces emerging between two joining bodies. Fantastic body mutations, applied with the greatest of ease, is the stylistic device for Chkhataraishvili.
This is how dream worlds are created. To hint spiritual states is more important than a physical position in our reality. Through a few, now and then reappearing objects, a table, a chair, a teapot the familiar, the trivial is yet involved. Space and relationship between objects and people, the in-between, the inner life, often impossible for us to put into words – this is Chkhataraishvili’s theme of art.
A radical handling of colors and forms is absolutely crucial for Chkhataraishvili’s artistic eye. The colors are vibrant-clear, assembled to individual surfaces creating a composition within sharp contour lines. Motifs always remain within the contour framework. Spatiality is although partially implied, it never reaches three-dimensionality. There is also no color gradients or smooth transitions in his works, colors clash harshly against each other, thus insinuating the emotions of the figures. This intensive brightness and vibrancy is created through the application of oil chalk.
Bold lines clearly disjoining single composition elements from each other is another characteristic of his artistic signature. It is thrilling, that human figures yet seem to merge into each other, their boundaries seem to disintegrate. These lines flow out of human bodies over to room furnishing, ornaments, shoes or lamps. Paradoxically, it is the boundaries that connect everything together. The observer is called upon to contemplate the image worlds. Faces do not always become visible at first sight. Sometimes it takes quite a while for the intertwined lines to reveal their secrets and versatility.
Text: Christjane Schüßler, Stuttgart
