ETERI CHKADUA |

Georgian artist Eteri Chkadua deserves a special place into the world of contemporary art for being everything but contemporary. We would like to honor her work for the extreme clarity and honesty of the message, which digs deep into the roots and tradition of her wounded land. Her big canvases are masterly painted with Flemish accuracy. You can see, at times, the naive complexity of Henry Rousseau, Frida Kahlo or the Hungarian tristesse of Magdolna Ban. But Eteri is a painter like no other. She’s bursting with life, rage, and a bleeding self-irony. Every painting is inspired by her life (she often portraits herself under different guises) or by Georgia’s pagan traditions, where wine drunk from animals’ horns, rifles, drones and skulls are part of a devastating reality where only the values of love and friendship are the holy rituals which guarantee survival. Eteri carves into the soul of the human psyche, bringing to surface the pearl of unspoken messages we are left to decipher. What a selfless act from an artist! Letting the viewer with the intellectual pleasure to unveil the story! When we look at Eteri’s artwork we feel a bit sad, though. Georgian artists (among many others) are part of a distant galaxy which, being far from the entanglement of the art world’s establishment, may not access the platform of visibility and fame even if – on the other hand – they are blessed by an isolation that preserves the genuine force and struggle of their work. Nevertheless our wish is that artists like Eteri could get more attention in the future. Her visual language is full of dignity, impactful, exotic and utterly colorful. You are invited to visit her website and read the text part which reveals the incredible stories behind every painting. We wish her good luck!