You are in luck. Throughout the month-long exhibition by Georgia’s iconic Levan Lagidze, I am dedicating this blog to his work in his words. These are no ordinary words. Lagidze’s poetic vision of the world - verbally, visually and intellectually - is a warm embrace for the mind and soul.

Lagidze was born in Georgia in 1958. When he graduated the Tbilisi Fine Art Academy in 1981, Georgia was still part of the Soviet Union, which meant that social realism (figurative paintings that idealised life under the communist regime) was the official painting style and deviations into abstraction were punishable by expulsion or jail. Hence, Lagidze started as a figurative painter, as seen in his 1981 graduation work (see above), which was the prize as the best work submitted that year by all fine art graduates across the Soviet Union.

During a 2020 interview, I asked Levan how he gradually made the transition from figurative to abstraction. (Below is a lovely progression of his impression of Tbilisi in the Autumn, from 1981 to 2023)

(Translated from Georgian)

It’s not pure abstraction of course. It’s an interpretation.
I really liked when I looked at space from a slightly different angle, looking at landscape from above. When you change the perspective you change the space.

Levan Lagidze, *Composition*, 1998, oil on canvas

I remember that I always wished not to separate space into three dimensions; that is, not to assign priorities as in the rules of perspective, far and near, primary or secondary. For example, for me the sky and the earth – as they are seen from above – have equal weight and importance on the canvas.

Levan Lagidze, *Autumn*, 2023, oil on canvas (currently on exhibit)

I’m inclined to think that after many artistic efforts my life confirmed that in life as in space, in principle, in the universe, there is nothing primary or secondary, everything is important. Absolutely. Every detail.

A Natural Progression