Монастырь креста / Monastery of the Cross (2022) Painting by Gocha Kirikashvili

Until almost 20 years old, I lived in the old district of Tbilisi. From childhood, I helped my father maintain, strengthen and rebuild our amazing house, which was located on a terrace on a mountainside. The main entrance to the house was on the first floor through a small courtyard, and the "black" exit was on the fourth floor from a small and cozy garden with several silkworm and fig trees. From the upper terrace I had a view of a large part of the old city, which I often examined with fascination through small theater binoculars.

During my youth, there were no mobile, electronic devices and computer games. My peers, in their hours free from studies and other duties, were mainly engaged in reading, some playing various board games, some drawing, etc. I often preferred drawing and for a long time it remained a game or a kind of meditation. I think that the love of drawing was passed down to me from my ancestors. My maternal great-grandfather Klavdy Orlov was a professional artist and lived in St. Petersburg.

My father Givi worked all his life as a fashion designer in a shoe factory, where he came as a young man after an unsuccessful attempt to enter the art academy. Drawing has always been his favorite hobby. He instilled this passion in me and my sister.

Much later, already being an adult, under the impression and the totality of emotions from visiting art exhibitions in various cities and especially the "masters' fair" in a place called "dry bridge" in Tbilisi, the idea came up to experiment with various drawing techniques. Since then, when creating almost all of my works, I use pastels and sanguines in different proportions. I am sure that this material optimally conveys the texture and color of architectural monuments.

The next stage was the COVID pandemic. The specifics of my work excluded the remote performance of official duties. And I decided to move into a service apartment at the enterprise. These conditions turned out to be ideal for my experiments in drawing. Then I got the idea to highlight individual elements of the picture, making them convex, using a special composition of papier mache. Particularly impressively highlighted elements look in the drawings of architectural monuments and natural objects.

In the period from 2020 to 2021, I painted most of my works, some of which I gave to people close to me, some I sold, some are still with me and are waiting for new owners. I keep drawing. Not as intensively as during the period of forced work on the "approximate" :(, but with no less pleasure and, I hope, with increased skill.

• Nationality: GEORGIA
• Date of birth : unknown date
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Georgian Contemporary Artists