"Baptism"
Ilia Balavadze

Ilia Balavadze is a Georgian contemporary artist who lives and works in Tbilisi. His works often explore the coexistence of tradition and contemporary experience. Painting is his primary medium, through which he focuses on inner human states, transformation, and spiritual quests.

During his time at the Ria Keburia residency, Ilia Balavadze created and presented the painting series Baptism. Some of the works were produced prior to the residency, while others were created directly during the residency process. The series is entirely new, and visitors will have the exclusive opportunity to see these works for the first time in the foundation’s exhibition space.

“The series is called Baptism rather than Epiphany, because for me this sacrament carries a broader and more multilayered meaning. Baptism is associated with change: leaving the old behind and discovering the new. On the path of artistic development, an artist constantly faces challenges and transformations. It is necessary to be ready to abandon comfort — even a working process that already brings results — and enter an uncertain emotional or imaginative space. Often, you begin completely from zero: with new experiences, experiments, and changes in technique and medium.

The series depicts young people and children, because any new beginning requires their inexhaustible energy. I believe this is an energy one must always be able to find within oneself. As for the influence of other artists, this is partly a provocation as well — an attempt to overcome fear, bullying, and the feeling of rejection, so that in the process of development you remain alone with yourself, without the voices that hinder any creative endeavor.
For me, no artist from any era is a closed book or merely a museum artifact. Through their influences, I feel their vitality. For me, art has no time; it is one vast living organism.”