Remembrances — Curious Material Explorations

I Did Not Drink My Mother’s Milk

This piece is about the first fact that I remember remembering about myself. For three days after my birth, I was not with my mother. When we were reunited, I did not drink her milk anymore. So, she fed all the other children, whose mothers didn’t have sufficient milk of their own.

Black clay, natural pearls.

Rupture

I was eight when my parents separated. Rupture is created by processes of tearing away, carving out and juxtaposing elements of clay, into new form, new structure. Solid at the first glance, but fragile in its nature.

Black clay.

Last Gaze

This piece is dedicated to my grandmother Izo’s gaze, before she passed away. She stared at me for hours, could not talk anymore. A piercing gaze, overflowing with love and sorrow, as if she knew, it was the last time she would see me.

Black clay.

River Of Tears

About human fragility, persistent grief and naïve empathy.

My grandfather passed away before I was born. At my grandmother’s house, his photo used to hang above a wall carpet and a sofa, where she would sit and cry, full of piercing grief through years and years. I was too young to fully grasp why she was crying, but I would often sit next to her and we would cry together.

This piece is dedicated to these deeply compassionate, sorrowful moments with my grandmother.

Handwoven aluminum wire, black clay.

Candlelight Oneness

Electricity was very limited when I was a kid. In the evenings, we would gather around a candlelit table, with unusual lightheartedness. It was a time of tender, intimate unity. So this piece is dedicated to those moments of togetherness and the wonderful human capacity to find joy in times of hardship.

Black clay.aluminium.

Waiting For Bread

Sometimes, my grandma would take me to the bread lines, where they used to give away bread for the families. If a child was present, they would give two, instead of one.

Black clay, painted oak, paper pulp.

Moonlight Treats

This piece is about pure childish joy, in anticipation, excitement for western candy that my mom used to bring back from her travels. Simple sweets that probably every kid had tried in the west, we didn’t have them, so it was a total bliss, to wait up for her in the night, to open up the suitcase straight away, to eat the candy, to at least try a bit of everything.

Black clay, aluminium.

The sense of self derives from the conscious and unconscious experiences that we live through. It is what makes us who we are and why we are. And while all of the past experiences become subjective fragmented sensations, some of them transform itself into distinct immortal moments, and some become vague perceptions, natural intuitive knowledge that lives in us. Some completely disappear from our conscious mind, vanish as if they never really happened. Some say, that quite substantial amount of our memories, are fictional stories that we create ourselves throughout our lives and believe them to be true.

Remembrances derives itself from the very intimate, personal memories from childhood and teenage years, growing up in Tbilisi, Georgia, during quite a peculiar and difficult moment. While quite a limited amount of them remain present, scattered around her consciousness are few memories, that left a big mark on her being, still projecting the most thorough sensations and details from certain occurrences.

This body of work is dedicated to these few but significant moments in her life, with each object drawing its meaning directly from one specific instant in time, one specific impression or sensation. Some joyful and some sad, some serene and some quite troublesome. While trying to translate memories into shapes and forms, she attempts to immortalize them, creating a kind of monument for each of them, like a materialized personal token, to revive and reconnect with them through these objects.

An ongoing body of work, currently consists of 7 objects.