Duo Exhibition of Elene Chantladze and Ser Serpas.

Gallery: LC Queisser

In Milan, the exhibition space becomes a hybrid domain, juxtaposition works of two context-wise distant artists, each deeply rooted in their environmental backgrounds. Serpas comes from ever-astir LA, permanently amidst a series of travel and constant change, in contradiction to the more conventional lifestyle of Chantladze, who's based in mellow balneological resort Tskaltubo, burdened with architectural memorabilia of Soviet Union.

Extreme consciousness of surroundings and their resourcefulness is vivid in their artistic processes as they both habitually salvage disregarded materials, later subjected to rearrangement or complete metamorphosis. Ser Serpas browses the city's streets sustained with communal litter, picking through the pollutants' plethora. The act itself and the chosen material then become an utterance of the agent's psyche and its affecting, still carrying on the layers drenched with narratives of use, loss, abandonment, displacement, and linger. Perambulating persistently to scavenge not only items but poems, diaristically typed into her mobile notes, from these walks. She is a poet who doesn't read books, nor has any favorite poets. On the other hand, Chantladze, who writes children's books and diary entries, as well as poetry, has always been an enthusiastic reader and a regular at Tskaltubo Public Library, where she felt the most in sync with the community, but at 74, she admits to regretting reading so much, as books fill her up with mere sadness. Elene's almost-incomprehensive scrabbles affix on the surface of the artwork or the backside, either fused with the actual painting or with the packaging imagery of the reused pre-hoarded empty product. This intuitively generated prompt and enigmatic inscription mannerism is quite similar to Serpas's, as both artists are very spontaneity-driven and overtly expressive. Chantladze takes pumpkin leftovers and smears them out on paper with her finger in a somatic form. Ser makes a work while unconsciously cleaning her palette and brushes against the paper.

In terms of technique, she has a vast scope of opus. Her speculative narratives translate into lulling paintings of floating landscapes, vision-like portraits that sit on the verge of figurative and abstract when some monochromatic works are pure abstraction. Quite small in scale, her pictures are executed on paper, corrugated cardboard, and wood scraps. It's practically impossible to keep track of elements implied as a mixed medium, as she tames utilitarian materials very unorthodox to painting. Washed over or thickly placed white is prevalent in almost all her paintings, from blushy pink that carries the presence of elusive void to agonizing crimson red, greens that remind one of aggressively bladed grass and chronicity of existence, to the self-sufficient browns, her color palette, standing alone, casts harrowing spells, but also meditates. This mythical quality is inherent to an archetypal self-taught artist, who's seized by a relentless need to paint every single day. The contradiction between her everyday practical activities amid pragmatic society and unshared intangible interests is reflected in her oeuvre. Using nonsequential perspective, fragmentary arrangement of subjects, paradoxically quite apparent but simultaneously ambiguous scenarios make Chantladze's paintings ethereal and somehow familiar.

The avoidance of the modern phenomenon of excessive self-contemplation, which is the product of anthropocentrism, and instead examining the pseudo-external nature and surroundings eases the artistic process, as the outer realm provides the observer with not only metaphysical but tangible resources. Chantladze's accouterments for artmaking include every bit of resource available around her; matchsticks are used as brushes, beach pebbles, scrap documents from her former workplace, hoarded empty chocolate boxes, and leftover foods from her garden, as the improvised medium to afford to paint. In engaging with the material in such a way, mental landscapes and memories are traced onto her paintings' deepest layers. She even reproduces her older works, painting over the black & white xerox copies landing them somewhere past the original, which solves the conflict of immortality as one can never live the exact moment twice.

The emotional memory span of the mind might be limited, but the body as the primary thinking mechanism of life never withdraws its encoded experiences or trauma. Ser Serpas uses the body motif in her carnal oil paintings to picture partners' bodies through dynamic composition, ecstatic color-maneuvering, and organic portrayal of form & posture that emphasizes the fragility of a passing moment and its unretrievable qualities, as well as the mentioned theme of space and memory.

The artistic subject of sexual encounters and the nude body has always been loaded with conflict of emancipating human rut in auster social structures that continue to exist more evidently in much evolved lucid perception of critical thinkers. Keeping in mind that Serpas took interest in political education and served as an activist even before her artistic endeavors, it would be naive to look at the erotic paintings as simply seductive ambrosian entities, rather than cognitive attempts to explore the body, gender, sexuality, identity, as well as the politics of arousal, desire, and consented pleasures. In the voyeuristic era of social media, libidinous imagery doesn't provoke any immediate anxiety towards the vulnerable nude subject but the indifferent gazer dominating the power dynamics. Serpas digs through her camera roll full of everyday candids, cartoon screencaps, memorable pictures, going back to these prior-made snapshots of her partners, to then make paintings out of it, not in attempts to vivify the intimate memory, but simply to exercise in color and form. Figures are ungraspable and eely, due to her depiction manner, supported by the sensual quality of oil paints, as are her faceless subjects, always unidentifiable, fluid, and sincere. Chaotic generous brushstrokes composing sinuous limbs in tangled positions, allowing the viewer to sense an imaginary corporal stench, creates a clash between bodily hyperawareness and passionate oblivion.

Gvantsa Jgushia