“The Caucasus Thought about Me”

Of course the Caucasus,

of course it thought,

blue and endless,

wherever it was born.

It is the only one.

I know it will be your home, it will think and convince you.

It will feed you, clothe you, undress you,

give and take,

make you feel,

love you and explain that the blue sky, it and you together are the Caucasus.

Sopo Cherkezishvili

“When I look at the Caucasus in front of me, I think that everything is possible, that it hears my voice, it sees me, follows me, it is my energy. It protects me like a fence for the rest of my life. It is like a parent, big and fearless. My people live in these paintings with it.” This is the vision of Sopo Cherkezishvili. The project “The Caucasus Thought about Me” was created with this vision, consisting of paintings and installation objects.

In the project “The Caucasus Thought of Me,” the dynamics of the paintings transfers into the installation object as a continuous shot. In each of them, one can notice the shape of the Caucasus. They create an army of individuals resembling small mountains. The women silhouettes are carved from wood, and all the viewers will be able to fit this body to themselves for a moment and become part of this army. A similar series “I am like you too” was built in the project according to the principle of a peculiar installation - 7 paintings of small size, which became an important dramatic accent of the project, as the “bordered” space of the wall. This space is a kind of allusion, which in its design resembles the door of an iconostasis, as the most important verge of our life, beyond which there is a space full of unknown light and a guarantee of permanence, and which everyone will have to cross at some point. The resemblance to the door of an altar and the canvas from the series “The Caucasus Thought of Me” - a woman in a flower arch on a blue background pushes us to bolder associations: all women in blue robes indicate to the Virgin. A woman who is sometimes large and majestic, like a mistress of the mountains, sometimes a little girl jumping on a bed surrounded by mountains, like guards, sometimes a dreamer walking in the woods, and finally, a mother surrounded by a flower wreath; But everyone has bare breasts, with a pronounced nipples as a sign of openness to the world, acceptance, concern for others, and at the same time it resembles a shooting target. And here I can’t avoid another “sensitive thought” that this is a symbol of our Motherland, its fate.

The exhibition ”Being on the mind of Caucasus Mountains” is financed within the frame of the project of the National Museum of Georgia –” Contemporary Art Gallery.”

Curator:Nino Cujabidze