Sunny village Print

Levan Mosiashvili He’s got a passion for mountains. In Georgia, it’s the Caucasus, though he’s got his “own place” in Europe, too, namely near the Pyrenees. Why mountains? Maybe because he feels that they are united by delicacy of their forms and a never-ending struggle: mountains struggling to rise higher in the sky, and the artist ever searching for new ways of expression. Artists have not only favourite places, but also recurring colours. Levan Mosiashvili has no such one, as he feels a special affinity with all colours. The artist audaciously combines hues and forms. Looking at his Georgian compositions, Kakhetian landscapes, cubist and abstract paintings, it is hard to believe that all these works came from the brush of one painter. He himself attributes that to an irrepressible desire to search for something new. However, in all the diversity of colours and shapes, one can discern a common feature – the Georgian roots. Levan Mosiashvili was born on 30 August, 1971, in Tbilisi. In 1993, he graduated from the Georgian Agricultural University, where he majored in Forestry. At the same time, he studied theatre direction. He was awarded a Candidate of Biological Sciences degree in 1996. However, he soon decided to create his own world. The first serious painting dates from 1993. Since then, painting has been his only profession. He has no academic art education, but this has never stopped his admirers from considering his works as comparable to those of Pirosmani, Chagall, Matisse, Peynet. The recognition took time, effort and commitment. He says that, for him, art is like an altar of the soul, a place for prayers. Levan Mosiashvili’s work can be divided into four distinct periods. The first one is rooted in the Georgian life experience. The land of his ancestors, Kakheti became his first source of inspiration, and the daily life, joys and sorrows of Kakhetian peasants were the main topics of the period. The Georgian spirit permeates his later works, too, though at times it is not so conspicuous. ‘You can never run away from your soil, from Pirosmani,’ said the artist. These works are known in Europe as ‘Mosiashvili’s frescoes’. The characters seem to follow the viewers with their eyes. The clarity and simplicity of the works resemble those of the Georgian Orthodox icons, and you can sense the nostalgia for ‘the paradise irretrievably lost’. The second period of his creativity is entirely dedicated to Tbilisi.