Georgian heroes of painting

Long time ago I intended to share what happened to me and my family in summer of 2014 in Tbilisi / Georgia. Furthermore I wanted to reach not only German speaking audience which is the reason why I write this post about two very special Georgian painters in English.

Starting in summer 2013 I spent a year in Georgia with my wife Nana and my two sons Luka and Ilia. Since I am very grateful to my Employee for having made it possible to spend that year in Georgia and continue working for him once we returned to Germany I kept wondering how to express that gratefulness. Of course the first things that came to my mind were that kind of pseudo traditional souvenirs suited for being put on a shelf were they keep aggregating dust until the employee is no longer working for the company. But then the style mismatch of modern cherry wood imitate against traditional pottery didn't really edge out the competition.

I was out for something ... .. original ... modern ... authentic. I had to meet a painter! Many times during that year we passed the მშრალი ხიდი ("Dry bridge") on our way from Saburtalo to Tbilisi's center. This is kind of an open air art flea market were all sorts of paintings are offered. Well, what I was able to spot from our car mostly seemed to be imitations of Niko Pirosmani's naive art to which I never really got access, honestly... So I was not that optimistic when we finally managed in June

to stop and have a look at that market. I was afraid to directly run into somebody who would only have an affinity for the word "money" while I was explaining him my idea of combining our company's logo with Tbilisi's skyline or so. And I was even more afraid that I would not have the balls to tell this somebody that there is no deal and I would end up with an overpriced piece of pseudo naive art which was trying to imitate our company's logo!

Having that all in mind and having finally found a parking place we entered the market from a side street directly heading to a market stand. There I stopped because the paintings that were exposed did absolutely not match with what I saw when passing by with the car. Looking close at them they seemed to be made of chaotic sharp lines of thick oil paint. From the distance they revealed impressing vivid scenes of old Tbilisi immersed into fresh light colors. I think I exhausted my vocabulary for describing art here but these paintings directly found their way to my heart! The man who ran the stand approached us and I felt like leaving would be the best because I didn't want to bother a luminary he definitely was with my destructive ideas of combining his work with my company's logo... Too late though. He was there and I had no choice but telling him what I was up to - expecting him soon to make me understand that he was not interested in working for a philistine. But things worked out differently. Shalva Pachoshvili (შალვა ფაჩოშვილი) turned out be a sympathetic genuine Tbilisi guy who absolutely understood my idea. Well, he modified and extended it a bit and came out with the proposal of laser cutting the logo's characters negative on a foil which he would then apply on a canvas, paint over it and finally removing the foil. I was ... hm .. more than impressed. This really felt like being the king which commands his personal painter to portray him ending up with a photo realistic painting of superman.

After we had an agreement and appointment to come and get the work some days later in the week we continued to stroll around the market a bit. After finding so beautiful paintings at the very first stand we saw I now feared that I had closed the bargain too early and would be frustrated seeing even more impressing pieces of art. But he definitely won the competition as most of his competitors seemed to have lived in Pirosmani's neighborhood. Shalva Pachoshvili's paintings enlightened this market. And so did his laser cutting approach.

But this would not have been a genuine Tbilisi market if there wasn't another treasure to uncover. And we soon found it hanging a bit shy on a rusty switchboard. What seemed to be an oversize color photography of a branch hanging full of lemons in front of an incredible blue sky at first glance turned out to be a masterpiece of oil painting. Every single spot of that picture unmistakably witnessed its creators perfect technical skills. "I'd like to pick them. They are so real!", said Nana and got the answer from a sun glassed guy sitting on a park bench nearby: "So pick them, they are yours!". It was Onisime Chikvaidze (ონისიმე ჩიკვაიძე) who ran another stand on the market and somehow had managed to ban this fully alive lemon tree on a canvas. He was surrounded by six-foot black and white oil paintings that illustrated old Georgian family members. Nana wasn't sure how to take that advice and continued starring at the lemons. Mr. Chikvaidse left the bench, took the painting and handed it over to Nana. She started to deny that with statements like "Oh no, I can not accept that!". And I was afraid that this was the beginning of a sophisticated "Make-the-European-guy-buy-the-painting-even-though-he-already-expended-his-budget" trick. Our help came in the shape of Mr. Pachoshvili who had witnessed the scene. He advised Nana not to worry and not to insult the generous artist by refusing the gift. That helped a lot and all were happy at the end. Thank you, dear Onisime Chikvaidze! Your lemons illuminate our living room like small little suns every day - even in winter!

Then the day came were Shalva Pachoshvili called us on the mobile. The logo painting we had ordered was ready and he invited us to come to his house in old Tbilisi were he had his atelier because I was interested in watching him at work. Again, I felt like the King who would finally hold his superman painting in his hands within a few minutes - a mixture of Christmas and the first exams. And he hadn't promised too much: The tower of Tbilisi in the logo's cube, the letters filled with Tbilisi houses on the rock above the Mtkvare river. This was exactly what I wanted the gift for my company to look like even though I wasn't able to imagine before. Thank you, Shalva Pachoshvili for making my idea become real!

Well, this could have been the end of that story. But again, Georgia would not be Georgia if it would end like that. Mr. Pachoshvili and I had made a deal which made both of us (I hope so) feel comfortable. On other places on earth it would have been a completely satisfying end if we just shook hands and wished us all the best and so on. I aimed to do so when we left the atelier on the second floor but the courtyard which led to the front door was blocked by a large table and seats. And the table was stuffed with Georgian foods and drinks and this is how Georgians tell their guests to stay and spend some time together. And so we did with his family and became friends and somehow forgot that we were customer and provider. It was a wonderful evening and the the lights of Tbilisi tower sparkled in the courtyard... Thank you!