Zaza Tushmalischvili

Zaza Tuschmalischvili, 2014

Zaza Tushmalischvili ( Georgian ზაზა თუშმალიშვილი ; born May 15, 1960 in Skra, Georgian SSR ) is a Georgian painter . Since 1991 he has lived and worked in Berlin .

Life

At the age of nine, Tuschmalischvili was operated on for a hernia. In the hospital, the painter and art teacher Nugzari Zhochuaschvili discovered the boy's talent. Then Tuschmalischvili attended the art school in Gori and was taught by Zhouchuaschvili. At the age of 15 he was admitted to the art-technical school in Tskhinvali , 30 kilometers from Gori.

After graduating from the art-technical school in 1979, he was drafted into military service in Saint Petersburg (then Leningrad) for two years . There one used his artistic talent for political purposes. He was commissioned to paint slogans and portraits, for example of Stalin and Lenin for International Labor Day. In addition, he made private portraits upon request.

At the age of 22 he started training at the Academy of Arts in the Georgian capital Tbilisi on a scholarship . He specialized in fresco restoration and studied techniques of restoring medieval wall paintings. He spent the semester break from 1984 to 1987 in the West Georgian monastery of Gelati . Here he was involved in the restoration of the apse mosaic of the Church of Our Lady. In 1988 the budding restorer lived and worked in the Ateni Sioni church for nine months . Here he worked on his diploma thesis, a copy of the Archangel Gabriel , a wall painting from the 11th century.

By perestroika and the fall of the Wall in 1989, the dream came true for him to travel to the West. In 1991 he came to Berlin, where he was the first to successfully exhibit his paintings in front of the Humboldt University.

In 1994 he met Annilie Hillmer through his painting "Rendezvous" and she became his gallery owner. As a result, she showed his pictures in her art salon and at international art fairs . In 1997 he won a competition of the New Society for Fine Arts and for one year his 187 × 300 cm picture Harmonie für die Liebe was shown at the Alexanderplatz underground station . He is now one of the most famous Georgian painters.

plant

The basis of his artistic work is the artistic tradition of his native Georgia. He works with elements of surrealism, expressionism, cubism and the naive, resulting in an individual formal language. Recurring symbols in his pictures are the fish, the tree, the cherubim and the bull. In his painting techniques, phases of oil painting alternate with watercolor and tempera. In more recent pictures he uses a mixed technique of watercolor and egg tempera, sometimes supplemented with pencil.

His pictures are characterized by light effects. In seemingly cubist collages of images, there are figuratively designed patches of color that are reminiscent of the brightness and warmth of the Mediterranean countries, to whose cultural area his Georgian homeland belongs. Frequently occurring themes in his paintings are love, childhood and play.

Tuschmalischvili has a claim to his work as an artist like the Georgian painter Niko Pirosmani . When asked why he - the highly talented artist - paints signs for business people, he answered: "If you don't want to do the simple, how can you do the great?" Tuschmalischvili started his career in a similar way, painting signs and portraits for clients.

Fresco church painting

In Tuschmalischvili's early paintings, the reference to Georgian wall paintings is clearly visible, the composition of which goes back to Byzantine and ancient Greco-Roman models. In Georgia even the smallest village churches were painted with scenes from the story of Christ and the legends of saints. Painting media such as egg tempera, which was used in medieval wall painting, can also be found in Tuschmalischvili's work.

Frequent themes and motifs are heaven or paradise, archangels, cherubim or a king holding a model of a church in his hand. His figures resemble the saints of the Georgian Middle Ages. Often his figures are “one-eyed”, one half of the face is sufficient to characterize them. He does not copy models, but translates figures and motifs into his form with his own coloring. It becomes clear that he worked as a restorer in the cave monasteries of David Garedsha from the 9th to 12th centuries, as he used similar color palettes: red and yellow ocher, green and blue, with blue being more expensive and imported in the Georgian Middle Ages Dye was used sparingly. As in the paintings by Dawit Gareja, his composition appears monumental. At the same time one finds in his pictures, which are structured like a carpet, echoes of folk art and wall painting of the Georgian high mountain region of Svaneti.

Changes in Zaza's Tuschmalischvilis work

Like the painters of the Russian avant-garde of the early 20th century, Natalija Sergejewna Gontscharowa-Natalija and Wassily Kandinsky , Tuschmalischvili finds an access to modernity and a liberation from the pathos of socialist realism at the art academy through a return to folk art. The tendency towards abstraction and the freedom from political apology are to be seen in this context as part of the silent protest of the then emerging generation of artists. These tendencies unfold to full bloom much later, in the early Berlin years, and initiate a development that continues in this form to this day.

In the mid-1990s, his image structure becomes more tectonic, the narrative richness of detail disappears in favor of a consistent composition. Instead of the perspective space and the three-dimensional shape, the depth of the picture occurs through the superimposition of individual surfaces, a tendency towards rhythmization sets in. The “Georgian theme” that still shines up here and there is only the starting point for a free play of possibilities that is developed compositionally. Although the artist continues to work with bright primary colors, these colors are subject to "tectonic structures".

From 2004 onwards there is a prismatic adjustment, the compositions become more transparent. In some works, the painter is content with colored accentuated edges that stand out from one another and allow transparent views, which is reminiscent of the stained glass of the Bauhaus . More recent works are reminiscent of stained glass windows in Gothic cathedrals. In an artistic way, Tuschmalischvili creates a synthesis between the frescoes of Georgia, which as imaginary windows dissolve the walls of the church buildings, and the glass works of art of the Middle Ages. He limits himself to painting and leaves the meaning of his pictures open.

Exhibitions

1989–1991 Tbilisi, Moscow
1992 Berlin, Epiphany Church
1992 Berlin, Galerie Frankenstein
1994 Berlin, Art of Georgia art salon, love
1995 Berlin, Art of Georgia art salon, dream
1995 Gothenburg / Sweden, Georgian Culture Days, Kärlek - Georgiska insikter
1995 Berlin, Akademie der Künste, documentary film The Russian City
1996 Zurich / Switzerland, Georgian Culture Days
1996 Berlin, Art of Georgia Art Salon, Glücksengel
1997 Berlin, Art of Georgia art salon, childhood
1997 Berlin, competition win of the NGBK Privat - art instead of advertising, underground station Galerie Berlin-Alexanderplatz
1998 Berlin, Art of Georgia art salon, spring
1998 Berlin, House of Russian Culture Impressions
1998 Berlin, Baden-Baden, LA Gallery Spiel
1999 Berlin, Art of Georgia Art Salon, spring
1999 Berlin, LA Gallery + Hamburg, Deichtorhallen, D'Art Contemporain
1999 Brussels, D'Art Contemporain
2000 Berlin, Art of Georgia Art Salon, spring,
2000 Berlin, Schlossplatz, "D'Art Contemporain"
2001 Berlin, Art of Georgia art salon, spring
2001 Strasbourg / France, start
2001 Geneva, Council of Europe
2001 Kronberg, Georgian Culture Days + Marbella / Spain, Mac 21
2002 Berlin, Art of Georgia Art Salon, spring
2002 Paris, Salon International d'Art Contemporain du Sud

2003 Berlin, Kurfürstendamm Gallery
2003 Gent / Belgium, Lineart
2003 Salzburg, art fair
2003 Rotterdam, Ahoy art fair
2004 Berlin, Kurfürstendamm Gallery
2004 Berlin, ZwischenWelten - 48 hours Neukölln
2004 Salzburg, art fair

2005 Potsdam, Brandenburg Art Fair
2005 Salzburg, art fair
2005 Dublin, Art Fair
2006 Municipal gallery Wilmersdorf / Charlottenburg and workshop of cultures, exhibition and film premiere Georgian impressions
2006 Salzburg, art fair
2006 London, The Great Art Fair
2006 Dublin, Mill Cove
2006 Hallward Gallery
2007 Berlin, Georgia Berlin Gallery, opening, game
2007 Salzburg, art fair
2007 Dublin, Mill Cove + Hallward Gallery
2008 Berlin, Georgia Berlin Gallery, childhood memories and dream worlds
2008 Dublin, Mill Cove + Hallward Gallery
2009 Berlin, Georgia Berlin Gallery, Georgian Culture Days
2009 Dublin, Mill Cove + Hallward Gallery
2010 Berlin, Georgia Berlin Gallery, Sehnsucht
2011 Berlin, Georgia Berlin Gallery, Georgian Culture Days, impressions
2011 Berlin, ART 1900 In the style of the 20s
2007–2017 Berlin, Georgia Berlin Gallery - Continuous exhibitions

Documentaries and awards

1995 Film documentation of the Berlin Academy of the Arts The Russian City
1997 Exhibition Berlin - Alexanderplatz as part of the competition of the New Society of Fine Arts
2000 Art Profil Kunst aus Europa Issue 3 2000 / 6th volume, volume 2 2001 / 7th volume, volume 5 2003 / 9th volume, volume 1 2005 / 11th volume
2001 Documentation Georgian (one) views 1994 - 1999
2006 Georgian Impressions - The Painter Z. Tuschmalischvil Film by Zaza Buadze
2014 Zaza Tushmalischvili Insights Georgia - Berlin / Insights Georgia - Berlin , Ed .: Georgia Berlin Gallery

literature

Georgia Berlin Gallery (Ed.): Zaza Tuschmalischvili Insights Georgia - Berlin / Insights Georgia Berlin, Berlin 2014. With contributions by Brigitta Schrade, Dr. Helmut Orpel and Annilie Hillmer. ISBN 978-3-00-044459-3 .
Dr. Helmut Orpel: Art from Eastern Europe, in: “Art Profile. The specialist magazine for current art. ”, Issue 3, vol. 2000 / issue 2, vol. 2001 / issue 5, vol. 2003 / issue 1, vol. 2005.
Dr. Helmut Orpel: Zaza Tuschmalischvili Insights Georgia - Berlin / Insights Georgia Berlin, Berlin 2014.

Web links

Commons : Zaza Tuschmalischvili - collection of images, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Tuschmalischvili, Zaza
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Georgian painter
DATE OF BIRTH	May 15, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH	Skra , Georgian SSR