ლევან ჭელიძე

Levan Chelidze

Born 1980 in Tbilisi, Georgia

Lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia

Education

2006 / 2012 Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, Tbilisi Georgia 2004 / 2006

Nikoladze Art College, Tbilisi, Georgia

Levan Chelidze paints an eclectic mix of portraits—of both people and

animals— still lives, and landscapes of the Georgian region of Racha. He is

also interested in Biblical themes.

In the era when almost everyone has a camera in their phone, and many

artists use photos as the basis for their portraits, Chelidze still takes a

traditional approach and requires his subjects to sit and pose. He is a

master at capturing their essential features. But he also plays with

perceptions, by setting their ‘real’ form, as he sees it, against imaginary

backgrounds. What his subjects wear in his paintings—or sometimes don’t

wear—similarly come from Chelidze’s fantasies, and not necessarily from

reality. Even while depicting Biblical themes, he aims at finding that non-

spatial point or that non-timely moment, where the present meets

historical and mystical past. Subjects of Chelidze’s paintings are typically

beautiful, sexy and noble. He paints people that he admires. Another

common feature of his work is that there is often a disconnect between the

realism of the main figure and the rest of the painting, whose meaning is

often left intangibly vague.

Chelidze’s portraits can seem unfinished, and sometimes that is the reality.

If one of his subjects is unable to return for another sittings, that’s it—he

finishes the portrait at that point and paints the background instead. It gives

his paintings a disarming honesty, making them more emotionally free, and

less formal.