Rusudan Khizanishvili – Beauty and the Beast

Galerie Kornfeld is more than pleased to introduce the solo exhibition Beauty and the Beast by Georgian artist Rusudan Khizanishvili.

In this mesmerizing exhibition, the renowned artist invites us through dreamlike portals into a world where figures intertwine with nature, escaping reality and time. It is a colorful journey combining femininity, mythicism, nature, and identity through tranquil, almost meditative compositions that convey a passionate yet melancholic intensity.

By experimenting with perception and dimensions—sometimes through hidden symbolism—Khizanishvili challenges the viewer to observe carefully. Her works are subjective to each individual viewer. Rich colors, an ancient connection to nature, intuitively crafted compositions, theatricality, and an innate sense of individuality combined with human interconnectedness draw us into these otherworldly realms.

Ever since she began reading, literature has been a major source of inspiration for Khizanishvili’s artistic practice. The exhibition title Beauty and the Beast refers to the French novel by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, on which a group of works in the exhibition is based.

Having studied film and fine arts, Khizanishvili is a storyteller in every sense of the word. Sentences from books transform into vivid images in her mind, which then materialize as physical artworks. Themes such as romanticism, identity, and the search for one’s inner self, voice, and strength—central to the novel—are also captured in her works.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with essays by Christoph Tannert, Suzan Kizilirmak, and Valentina Buzzi.

Published by Ludvig Rage Production, approx. 100 pages, approx. 80 color illustrations.

To celebrate the publication, a book launch takes place on November 5, 2022, from 5–6 pm at Galerie Kornfeld.

Rusudan Khizanishvili (born 1979) lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia. Deeply influenced by the duality of spirit and soul as expressed in medieval art, her paintings create a cathedral of dynamic tension born from artistic imagination. Questions of the self, connections to biology, cultural memory, myth, and the female body are the subject of her constant inquiry, through which she demonstrates maturity and mastery of color.

She earned two BFAs in painting at the J. Nikoladze Art School and the Tbilisi State Academy of Art. In 2004, she received her MA in Film Studies from the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts.

Over the past fifteen years, Khizanishvili has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including at the Museum of Modern Art Tbilisi, the Literary Museum of Georgia, the State Silk Museum Tbilisi, the Mark Rothko Foundation (Daugavpils, Latvia), Galerie Am Roten Hof (Vienna), Arundel Contemporary (UK), New Image Art Gallery (Santa Monica), Kunstverein Villa Wessel (Iserlohn), Norty Paris, Triumph Gallery (Moscow), Assembly Room (New York), Window Project (Tbilisi), Art Busan, KIAF Seoul, Untitled Miami, Seojung Art (Daegu), Art021 Shanghai, and Tbilisi Art Fair.

In 2015, she represented Georgia alongside five other artists at the 56th Venice Art Biennale. Her works are held in the collection of the Georgian National Museum, the private collection of Stefan Simchowitz (Los Angeles), and the Breus Foundation (Moscow). Numerous publications have been dedicated to her work, including King is Female: Three Artists from Georgia by Nina Mdivani and The Knight in Panther’s Skin. In 2016, she received the main prize of the Związek Polskich Artystów Plastyków, Gliwice Art Community, Poland.