Georgian painting with Odesa style variations

Emzari Kiknavelidze came to Odesa 16 years ago from Georgia. At first he came for a month, then for two, and the third time he stayed there for good. Odesa “caught” him completely. Today Kiknavelidze’s art has completely fit in the cultural environment of this city.

The interest to Kiknavelidze’s work can be largely explained by unusual style and genre orientation of his paintings. The artist brings to the contemporary art entirely new pictorial variations. Of course, the origins of his art have national roots; however, one could feel the tangible attraction to the literary plot, which determines the whole tone of every painting.

Emzari Kiknavelidze was born in 1964 in Zestafon (Georgia). He studied at the Art School in Tbilisi at the Sculpture Department. Later he studied at the Institute of Architecture. In 1989 Kiknavelidze began to actively participate in exhibitions. In 1996 the artist moved to Odesa. According to him, even though moving was quite accidental, in general it is a very typical story. Many people after a few visits to the “pear of the sea” stay here for longer.

Mr. Kiknavelidze, could you please tell us why do you work with painting after studying at Sculpture Department?

“In life I dealt more with architecture than with sculpture, and painting is, after all, the basis of everything. As a rule, all architects are good painters because such person needs to have a well-developed figurative and spatial thinking.”

How and where do you find subjects for your paintings?

“I think that such paintings can only be made in Odesa. Everything that surrounds you here helps to do it: atmosphere, aura... It’s not like I sit down and make up a new story but something catches my eye and stays with me somewhere deep inside. It constantly lives there, transforms, and ripens. Then, with time, it comes out, often in a quite modified form. And, apparently, this process of modification is called creativity. For example, now I am working on a canvas, where Hasids will be portrayed as swallows. A simple story was before this image appeared: once I was walking along a street and noticed that from a distance in their black and white clothing they look very similar to swallows.”

What should paintings by Kiknavelidze tell his audience first of all?

“This depends on the person who is looking at them. I don’t want to impose any connotations… Old Georgian movie had a great influence on me. That is why, if a person is familiar with it, he will certainly find something close to his heart in my paintings too. In Odesa when they speak about my art they often say that it was born from Georgian roots and Jewish themes. Perhaps, this is true. I always doubt whether I am right. Maybe I don’t understand something completely because I was brought up on, so to say, old rules and today’s reality is different, new… I try to paint beautiful feelings to counterbalance coarseness and vulgarity.”

And it is not quite popular today…

“I am not chasing trends and wish all the artists the same. Get it out of your heads, forget about it, only then you have a chance to bring something new and beautiful into the world around us. We won’t last forever but art is eternal and this should never be forgotten.”

Indeed, the beauty of fairy tale events in Kiknavelidze’s paintings, perhaps, is in the natural connection of times, which the artist does not only keenly feel, but he also creates its regularity in an absolutely amazing way. He creates his own plot of genre priorities, and along with that the style of painting techniques and images in the real space. The intricate brushwork (multi-texture surface, tone gradation of colors) creates the effect of “old art” or a long forgotten photo and it brings sort of a nostalgic touch. Personal context of the paintings does not deprive them of their social meaning because the thing and the phenomenon are absolutely the same here. The peculiarity of artistic form only focuses on the vitality and credibility of Kiknavelidze’s images.

Paintings of Emzari Kiknavelidze are stored in private collections in Ukraine, Georgia, Russia, the US, Italy, Germany, and Israel. His art works are almost always exhibited in Odesa. In Kyiv from April 1 through 15 a small exhibition of works by artists from Odesa: Emzari Kiknavelidze, Dmytro Lytvynov, and Anatolii Fedirko will be open in the “Garna Gallery” (Shovkovychna Street, 5).