For his first exhibition with the gallery, entitled History of the Present, Konstantin Totibadze (b. 1969 in Tbilisi, Georgia) created series of new works (2022-2023) with oil on canvas. Selected works represent two favorite artist's themes – still life and one-object composition with a vase as symbolical image.
Still life has always been the genre in which the virtuoso capability of painting, the deceptively real portrayal of objects and their surfaces, could be directly implemented. A carefully constructed arrangement of different things on a table with lighting from the side that makes the surfaces of the material and objects glow. Time seems to pause, thus making its relentless onward march all the more conscious.
Konstantin Totibadze revives the rich tradition of the European still life painting in a surprising new way, establishing the link between past and present by implementing and developing values, vision, technique, and visual codes of XVI – XVIII centuries’ paintings and the genre of still life particularly.
Totibadze’s objects, remarkable by their very realistic representation and the impression of being part of material life, form a system of codes and symbols which follows and develops tradition of still life painting. The food, vases and tableware painted by the artist are not only aesthetic objects, but also symbols of life, as was the case at the end of the 16th century when the still life genre had developed in Europe. Symbolical meanings are crucial for the depicted objects which he organizes with almost mathematical accuracy in one-line compositions.
Another work series represent compositions with only one single empty vase, some of these mystical objects measure over two meters in size. Then the size of the vase corresponds approximately to that of the human body and, thus, the vase becomes a figure. However, the large vases are rooted in the tradition of surrealism; the enigmatic alienation of the world of things.
The artist often depicts the vases in front of a deep black background, into which they almost disappear, so that the emphasis is less on their volume and more on the rich details on their surfaces. The same applies for the still lifes where more objects are arranged on a table. The evenly falling tablecloth makes up a large portion of the painting and has the effect of an abstract area in which the patterned, internal structure is portrayed in detail. Such a play with surface and space is characteristic of Totibadze's compositions. When life-size motifs are depicted, as in most of his still life paintings, there is often the impression that one could enter the pictorial space.
Totibadze's way of reviewing the art history of still life in a painterly and motivic way would have made him an ingenious forger. It takes a detective's eye to discover all the intricate details, such as single drops of water on the side of the vase.
However, the artist does not compete with the accuracy of the technical image. While, for example, Gerhard Richter transfers photographically captured light reflections into painting, Totibadze makes the light roll off the color, as Vermeer did. But when Richter depicts a single candle, there is a direct connection to Totibadze's vases, which sometimes resemble urns. Both motifs remind us, in the classical tradition of still life, of the transience of existence.
