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Irakli Bugiani - Blue Tunnel

21 - 29 October, 2017

Moving Gallery, East Point, 2, Al. Tvalchrelidze str., Tbilisi, Georgia

Project ArtBeat presents a solo exhibition – Blue Tunnel by Irakli Bugiani.

Bugiani presents site specific installation at Project ArtBeat Moving Gallery. The visitors find themselves stepping into the surreal world through the Blue Tunnel - object made by mirrors, metal, wood and light. Bugiani designed the installation according to the principle of Kaleidoscope. The reflections allude to the world’s diversity and its unity at the same time, also, it reveals the boundaries between material and immaterial structures.

Irakli Bugiani (B. 1980, Tbilisi, Georgia)

Bugiani accomplished his studies in Fine Art at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 2001. Since then he studied at Ecole des Beux Arts in Rouen, France, at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, Germany and received MA in Art History at the Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf, Germany in 2010.

Bugiani works in painting and collage. His works depict interiors and exteriors of architecture empty of human presence. The abstract imagery composed with rough strokes of oil on canvas combined with application, leave an impression of the yet unfinished work in process. The impressionistic landscapes, seascapes and washed out portraits compose the exploration into the fictional and the historical facts of one's memory. The combination of the subject matter and the working style evoke an unsettling ambiguity.

Bugiani’s artistic formation was influenced by his past, and namely by Perestroika and by collapse of the Soviet Regime, followed by the civil war and nationalist movements. His paintings of 2009 - 2012, containing cut-outs from family albums and archives, are attempts to analyze these events.

Influences from Soviet era are visible in the series of works created between 2013-2014. This time Bugiani is focused on soviet and post-soviet architecture. He creates a series of paintings, entitled “Sovieticum” (the term invented by artist himself), in which architecture is explored as a main factor in formation of Identity and cultural environment.

2014-2015 marks Bugiani’s growing interest towards monumental painting. He co-organizes a project 191°S (Dusseldorf) - curated series of mural paintings in various locations - and creates two murals of his own as well.

In 2016, Project ArtBeat organized Irakli Bugiani’s first solo exhibition in Georgia, at GNM, Georgian National Gallery. The show curated by Levan Mindiashvili brought together pivotal works of the artist, marking important aspects of his practice.

Selected solo and group exhibitions:
2016 - To See a World in a Grain of Sand, organized by Project ArtBeat, GNM, Georgian National Gallery, Tbilisi, Georgia. 2015- Ausstellungseröffnung: 191°S, WELTKUNSTZIMMER, Dusseldorf, Germany; Kunstpunkte 2015, Dusseldorf, Germany; Heritage, RICHMIX Arts Centre, London, UK; 2014 -Crossing the boundaries, AT388, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2013 - Kunstpreis Junger Westen 2013, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Recklinghausen, Germany; 2012 -  Post Coitum Omne Animal Triste Est,Damenundherren e.V., Dusseldorf, Germany; 2011 - Zwischen Gestern und Morgen, Gallery 10, Karlsruhe, Germany. 

Irakli Bugiani lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany.

The project is realized with the support of East Point and Children and Youth Development Fund.