Hot Coffee with contemporary Georgian artists Rusudan Khizanishvii and Uta Bekaia on their dual show in Tbilisi

Two contemporary Georgian artists Rusudan Khizanishvili and Uta Bekaia recently joined forces for a dual show for an ongoing exhibition titled MotherShip at Window Project in Tbilisi, Georgia.With the works made of fiber, ceramics, textile, canvasses on view they are sending messages of humanity and our value as species into cosmos.With this theoretical exercise the artist question the boundaries of our engagement with surrounding ecosystems and ourselves.

Nina: Imagine you are in your favorite coffee or tea spot. Where is it? What are you drinking? What are the three things you see right now?

Uta: It's springtime on the beautiful island in the middle of the lake. Around us, we can see mountains still covered with snow. The air is crisp and fresh, birds are chirping. Fields are carpeted with red flowers, swaying gently in the wind. The sky is blue, with white clouds swiftly passing overhead. We are sitting at a table that's partially submerged in the water, giving us a clear view of all the colorful water plants swaying like hair in it. We are enjoying hot chocolate.

Rusudan: I'm currently working in the residence of CCA Andratax, located in the little town Sa Coma, on Balearic Island Mallorca so my new coffee spot is located in the studio where I work for February.
I wake up and go feed two ginger cats belonging to the residency who choose me for the role of Temporary Mom in here :) then I make myself coffee with milk in a large glass cup and move out into the courtyard of the residence.There’s a mountain opposite of me, right behind of the orange and tangerine garden, covered with a coniferous forest, I look at the mountain and the forest listening to the goats not far away and feel peaceful, having meditated for a while, I am back to the studio, sit in a chair and look at the painting I am currently working on, analyzing it and finishing my first coffee of the day.

Installation photo,**UTA BEKAIA x RUSUDAN KHIZANISHVILI - MOTHER SHIP,January 25 - March 10, 2024.** Photo courtesy of the artist and the gallery.

Nina: Please tell me more about "MotherShip" your ongoing dual show at Window Gallery,Tbilisi. What prompted this exhibition? What is the underlying idea to bring you two together?

Uta:I feel like Rusudan and I come from a very similar place of self-expression, with a sense of color, shape, and storytelling. I believe we both have a vision to create surreal worlds within worlds, so our collaboration feels effortlessly natural.

Rusudan: Uta and I have been collaborating with the gallery for several years and have already been included together into group shows and art fairs. We have been thinking about our collaboration for a long time, since our works have many overlaps with each other. We both devote and work on the topic of transhumanism and the search for archetypes.
Last year, having received an offer from a gallery for our joint exhibition, we developed the idea together and delved into the works.
My part of the show is based again on a favorite literary monument - the Epic of Gilgamesh, only if I mainly referred to the visual and symbolic images of the Half God and Half of the Man Gilgamesh. History of the discovery of the poem Epic of Gilgamesh by John Smith and enormous work and passion that went into it always inspired me. Piece by piece John Smith collected the adobe clay plates and again gave the World the very first masterpiece of literature. Thus, the idea was born to “send” our visual messages into Space as confirmation of the existence of humanoids sometime in the distant past. Thus, we moved the narrative between Uta and me into the future, past and present at the same time.
For this purpose, I built a “capsule” visually based on ancient architecture, painted a frescoes mural on and “loaded” into it a series of works under title of Manipulation Room. A series presented as a number of small scale canvases of squares, rectangular shapes, tondos and octagons with images of various actions and fragments, I sort of broke the image of a Human in one form or another into component parts. They all seem to be familiar but with hidden meanings and messages as we can see the pictographic images.
In addition to “Manipulation Room” I have produced two large scale paintings: The Magician and In Your Chest. The second work carries a message based on the well known expression of Carl Gustav Jung “In Your chest and only in it all the stars of your destiny are enclosed.“
Also Uta and I created joint works - a Dark Blue velvet curtain, symbolizing the Space or the Black Hole, which is absorbing the light and shadows and a sound installation with the voice reading our poems.

Nina: Could you pick one work currently on view and zero in on it. What is it called? What inflenced you when you were working on it? How does it fit the overall direction of your artistic practice?

Uta:In this exhibition, my artworks are very much interconnected; it would be hard to single one out as they all represent Mother Earth. They are created as vaginal-shaped portals, highlighting the cyclical nature of the Earth. I was greatly influenced by sci-fi books, specifically Asimov, while creating this work, as well as ancient Byzantine craft and design.

Rusudan:I would like to talk a little about my two works showing in the exhibition of the Mothership in a somewhat unusual format for me: Merge 1 and Merge 2. For these works, I made ceramic braids, which I mainly paint, wrapped them in artificial synthetic braids and placed them in a glass box like Sleeping Beauty on a bed of fresh flowers and leaves. For me, these works are especially important, cut synthetic and ceramic hair that has ceased to exist but is in a living environment that will live and transform until the last drop of moisture (life) evaporates. In these works, symbolizing the cessation of one form of existence and passing into another. Thus we are present as witnesses to the process of impersonation.

Nina: Through this work you are sending out signals and energy into outer space. Is it your attempt to reach humanity in your audience, members of which are likewise digitally spaced out?

Uta: Absolutely.

Rusudan: Most likely so, unfortunately we do not have specific knowledge about the future, even about the past our knowledge is not convincing, we are only based on subjective facts and build our knowledge on it and have no idea where certain actions will lead us, but based on the fact that have passed through centuries and millennia and we have an artifacts in our hands, we can say with confidence that art is eternal and will live on, even in a modified form. I would really like to hope so.

Nina:As you conceived your half romantic, half abstract individual visions of the future how do you visualize it? Where will humans live? How will they communicate? What their art would be like?

Uta: In my hopeful vision, humans of the future are wise. They are connected to each other and to nature; there are no borders, no sense of ownership, no fear of the unknown, and no fear of death. Self-expression is valued and appreciated. Technology is organic and is created for harmony, not for greed. Art is ubiquitous and is embraced as an abstract means of learning history, so history becomes fluid.

Rusudan:As in my main works, which are always dedicated to Human Beings and to the inner and outer beauty, I would like to remind us of this again. With the rapid development of technology, we are on the verge of extinction in the digital field, most likely we will once again face the Catastrophe. But while we are here and now, we are moving in the current of the Ocean of the Unknown. That was the message in the Ship of Mother .

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