With a large body of work mainly comprising mixed-media paintings,
Tamuna Sirbiladze was known for her distinctive style, which continually
forged new terms between dichotomous relationships. Abstract and
figurative, playful and serious, energetic and quiet, vibrant and muted,
Sirbiladze's work is characterized by both its intensity and
flexibility.
Known for the speed at which she worked, there is a quality of immediacy
in her paintings, as if they provide direct access to her imagination.
This primacy is perhaps most evident in her gestural, improvisatory
paintings made with oil sticks on unstretched, raw canvas, which
purposely retain the appearance of being unfinished. "As an artist,"
Sirbiladze writes, "I don't want to control what the representation will
be seen as." This catalogue presents a careful selection of these oil
stick works along with her other paintings--including her celebrated V
Collection (2012), which was made in dialogue with iconic works by
Caravaggio, Giotto, Raphael, and Velazquez, as well as her later
paintings focused on women's bodies in intimate, underrepresented
scenes, Sirbiladze's response to male dominance in the art world.
With contributions by Max Henry, Anna Kats, and Julie Ryan, as well as a
conversation with the artist and an arrangement of fifteen sonnets by
her partner, Benedikt Ledebur, this publication provides a comprehensive
survey of Sirbiladze's works and practice.
