The person of the week: George Totibadze
ARTinvestment.RU   01 июня 2020

In the woods is very comfortable to be in, but there is a light that beckons you. It's like life: you can stay with guests free of trees, and all the time to push forward (Georgy Totibadze)

"...Art Totibadze — is invitations to those regions, where... all of us... it is necessary to look from time to time better as often as possible. And change the laws of time..." (cultobzor.ru).

Georgy Totibadze — representative of a dynasty of talented Georgian artists Kutateladze-Тотибадзе. Each member of the family has made a significant contribution to the fine arts. Grandfather, Apollo Kutateladze, was one of the founders of the Tbilisi Academy of arts, his father, the painter Georgy Konstantinovich Totibadze, headed the Academy for over 10 years. Aunt Mirelle Kutateladze was the daughter of a famous artist-авангардиста Cyril zdanevicha. Of course, this could not affect the personality formation of the young artist, on the education of artistic taste.

Brother Konstantin — is known today, the artist with whom George has repeatedly taken part in collaborative art projects. Together in 2016, they founded the modern art gallery "gallery Totibadze" on the territory of modern art Center "Winery" and hold solo and group exhibitions. Business partners of the gallery have become film Director Marina tsurtsumiya and collector George Tasker. It should be noted that among the existing Moscow sites this gallery occupied a niche. The curators of the project, the brothers George and Constantine, are supporters of traditional painting. "With all due respect to modern conceptual trends we don't show at exhibitions hermetic works that require special skill for their decryption. We feel a desire to tell about what the viewer learns through conceptual art. Give them a vaccination of figurative painting, the ability to be curious and discover what-то new", — define their task artists.

Georgy Totibadze was born in 1967 in Tbilisi. He studied at the Moscow art school of memory of 1905 (1982-1986), in the Tbilisi Academy of fine arts (1986-1991), where teachers were D. Hamina, G. Alexi-Месхишвили and father, G. K. Totibadze. With great warmth and gratitude George remembers the lessons of the father, imparted a love of art and teach the basics of professional skill. It was within the walls of the Academy, where there was more creative freedom than in Moscow, George experienced the first shock from acquaintance with Western art: "when in Moscow studied Plastov, in Tbilisi, studied reproductions of Matisse". In his younger years he loved the works of Rembrandt, Velasquez, after visiting the Prado Museum in Madrid he was delighted with the paintings by El Greco. From vivid impressions of the last years, the artist said the exhibition "Francis bacon, Lucien Freud and the London school" in the Pushkin Museum. A. S. Pushkin (Moscow). The artist believes that to understand modern art you need to watch more, visit the exhibition, to analyze, to soak up new experiences. At different times George lived and worked in Paris (1993-1994), Hong Kong (1996), in San-Франциско (1997-1998). Introduction to world art tradition in conjunction with their own experience helped the artist to findits place in the art world.

In an interview, he called himself "neoprimitivism", most clearly these traits are reflected in a series of portraits (2000-е).

a special place in the artist takes the genre of landscape. Totibadze created an interesting, extraordinary in concept a series of landscapes that captures the landscape from the height of bird flight. Topographical landscapes are spread out before our eyes a huge space, taken fragmentarily, as if from the cosmic heights. We see on the map, panoramic landscapes — forests, fields, mountains, lakes, plains, roads, tiny houses, we see from the height of our land, above all sounds fantastic, these types of becomes aware of the immensity of the world.

the Artist strives to constantly innovate and diversify their painting techniques. The series "Gardens" is solved in quite a different style. Trees with dense canopies strewn with tangerines, as theatrical scenes, fringe the road leading inland. They are made in the free picturesque manner. In these compositions, a lot of light that pours through the leaves, the color reflexes emphasize the beauty of a perfect summer day.

In 2017 the exhibition in the Centre "Winery" was exhibited a large series of works by Georgy Totibadze with forest groves. The artist enthusiastically painted the forest for many years and loved him since childhood. "When you live in a concrete city, all the while experiencing nostalgia for nature... the Woods are like a Mirage, — he says, — sometimes it happens that you go on thicker and see the clearing in front of the light, and you think that the exit from the forest. And then closer, and it turns out that it's just a lit clearing. And again and again..." (Georgy Totibadze) In this series of imaginary mirages are converted into pictures that intertwine branches of trees, forming your own pattern, complex pattern, consisting of shadows and lines piercing rays of the sun on the soft earth alternate light and dark shades of color, through the dense foliage and branches of the translucent blue of the sky. In this wonderful forest, not scared at all, everything is full of harmony, light, filled with life.

It would be strange if the Georgian artist wrote still-lifes. In Georgia, so good, so generously treated with attention and hospitality, so it was natural that George and his brother Constantine wrote a lot of paintings in this genre. They even tookparticipation in traditional art-проекте in Gum — the Exhibition of achievements of agriculture presented his still lifes, composition-перфоманс and set the table.

Georgy Totibadze believes that the family — the main bulwark in life, his world. In the family of the brothers Totibadze 13 people. Constantine 6 children of George and his wife Irina, also an artist, three daughters. They all live together, have many common passions and interests, doing karate. They wrote a book about the delicious food called "Germaniada. Italy. Culinary guide", which not only has recipes, but also an art book. In 2008-м was published another book — "Georgia. First, second, third".

Here's the artist Georgy Totibadze: a painter, a Swinger, optimist, in the front — new and interesting ideas and projects.

Alexei Smirnov, specifically for AI