LIZI BUDAGASHVILI - FIREFLIES

Vernissage Gallery requests the pleasure of your company at Lizi Budagasvhili`s solo
exhibition to be held on July 23. at 6 pm.
Exhibition will be on view till August 15th.
Address: Shota Rustaveli Avenue 36.

Artist Statement
My work explores the themes of childhood, nostalgia, memories, and origins. Through the theme of childhood, I convey the melancholic nostalgia for the most carefree, innocent, and irreproducible period of our lives. The ephemerality of childhood has a significant impact on the painting and printmaking techniques I use to create the ethereal, hazy, and dreamlike atmospheres portraying how I see memories after multiple layers of removal. Growing out of childhood and becoming an adult comes with some irreversible yet painful processes, such as disconnection from home, which I experienced due to moving away at 17. Now I portray it through the vast landscapes, distant horizon lines, and ripped-off, displaced furniture. These interior items also symbolize the constant longing for the comfort and safety of home that we carry with us throughout our lives. By abstracting my childhood memories to recreate the past in the present and relive the feeling of safety and joy, I invite others to travel through the dreamscapes that aim to blur the line between the authenticity of distant memories and reality and revisit the sweetest and furthest episode of their lives - childhood. Depicting nostalgia, I cover longing not only for a different time but a different space. It is a longing to return to that idealized past and certain people and locations left behind. By including children's figures in my works, either by themselves or with their adult versions, I seek to capture the authentic self we often lose as we grow older.
Lizi Budagashvili