- 41
Kote Sulaberidze
bidding is closed
Description
- Kote Sulaberidze
- By Eyes of the Colourblind
- each: signed, titled and dated 2012 on the reverse
- oil on canvas, in two parts
- each: 79.8 by 150cm.; 31 3/8 by 59in., overall: 79.8 by 300cm.; 31 3/8 by 118 1/8 in.
Provenance
Baia Gallery, Tbilisi
Catalogue Note
By Eyes of the Colourblind (2012) was specially commissioned for the Sotheby’s exhibition by the Baia Gallery, after a 1999 installation of the same name by the artist. The work is a further development in Sulaberidze’s exploration of colour. The two parts of the diptych are negations of each other and reflect the world through the eyes of a colour blind person and one with regular vision. The work questions normatives of vision and our visual perceptions of the world.
Basic shapes and figures often act as symbols and carriers of Sulaberidze’s message, for example white direction arrows indicate angels flying over a landscape in Vintage in Kakheti (2009). In this work, colourful circles spreading from the centre of the diptych act as rays of blinding sun - by disturbing our gaze and blurring the picture they evoke the precariousness of our trust in our own vision.
Furthermore, reminiscent of Georgian modernist paintings of David Kakabadze and Niko Pirsomani, the landscape is rendered in primitivist style, which put colour at the forefront of its artistic expression. Thus, in this work Sulaberidze has appropriated the classical Georgian colourist painting while subverting the ontological relevance of its traditional hierarchies.
Basic shapes and figures often act as symbols and carriers of Sulaberidze’s message, for example white direction arrows indicate angels flying over a landscape in Vintage in Kakheti (2009). In this work, colourful circles spreading from the centre of the diptych act as rays of blinding sun - by disturbing our gaze and blurring the picture they evoke the precariousness of our trust in our own vision.
Furthermore, reminiscent of Georgian modernist paintings of David Kakabadze and Niko Pirsomani, the landscape is rendered in primitivist style, which put colour at the forefront of its artistic expression. Thus, in this work Sulaberidze has appropriated the classical Georgian colourist painting while subverting the ontological relevance of its traditional hierarchies.