Vakho Bugadze

Baia Gallery, Tbilisi

Tbilisi, Georgian National Museum, Victoria, 2013, p. 15,  illustrated in colour 

Vakho Bugadze graduated from the department of Sculpture at the Tbilisi State Academy. His oeuvre revolves around the social themes prevalent in Georgia. His paintings, often on the verge of abstraction, are engulfed in the melancholia of his generation that have lived through the Civil War and the Abkhazian conflict.

The present work is memorabilia from the very last season at the Tbilisi Hippodrome, famous for the fabulous horses brought from across the Northern Caucasus and Central Asia. "My friends and I spent the whole season at the Hippodrome that year. 23 years from that season I have set up the exhibition Tbilisi Hippodrome, but instead of 1990, the year of that derby, I have put 91 due to certain developments that have taken place that year and still prevail today", comments the artist. Besides the direct referencing to the very last season at the hippodrome, the painting also refers to the tragic events in Georgian history of the 1990s which have interfered with and forever altered the life of the country.