Solo Show of Paintings by Irakly Chkheidze in the Russian Academy of Arts

The Russian Academy of Arts presents a solo show of paintings by Irakly Chkheidze. He was born in Tbilisi in 1968 and started drawing at the age of ten in the studio of Professor of the Tbilisi Academy of Arts Y. Mekvabishvili.

He continued his art education at Y. Nikoladze Art College and from 1987 till 1992 at the Tbilisi Academy of Arts in the department of monumental and decorative art. In the hard 1990s he lived for some years in Moscow and decided to move to New York where he worked for six years at the Bell-Design company and seemed to have forgotten about painting.

In America he realized, that “it is not mine! No doubt, the country is interesting and rich… But I was homesick. My home is Georgia. My father has showed me a lot of countries and I could compare. You know, my roots are in Imereti, in the village of Obcha. I went there and felt myself newly born. The nature, solitude, horses… I worked much: oils, drawings, a lot of works. I came back to Tbilisi and started preparations for my exhibition activity”. His several solo shows in Tbilisi in 2010 were of big success.

Since his return to Tbilisi in the early 2000s Irakly Chkheidze has entirely devoted himself to painting. It should be noted, that his father P. Chkheidze, the former Permanent Representative of Georgia to the Russian Federation, ex-Ambassador of Georgia to the United States and former Permanent Representative of Georgia to the United Nations at the moments of his son’s hesitations strongly advised him to take up painting again.

Irakly Chkheidze with new eyes has seen the beauty of his native land, the village of Obcha in Imereti Province. Obcha is his most favorite place with an old pond with water-lilies, the impressive greenery of the woods and abundance of colors during the autumn season. In his numerous and so different landscapes the artist tries to depict not only the impression, but also to create an intellectual portrait of the nature.

The show is an invitation to stop for a moment and to think of the beauty of the surrounding world that can be so easily lost.




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