Tbilisi Art Fair 2026

Presented artists: David Apakidze, Tamo Jugeli, Keti Katapanadze, Lasha Kintsurashvili, Nina Kintsurashvili, Nika Kutateladze, Zauri Matikashvili, Nato Sirbiladze, and Beso Uznadze

At Tbilisi Art Fair 2026, Bukia Vakhania presents a group exhibition bringing together works by Georgian artists: David Apakidze, Tamo Jugeli, Keti Katapanadze, Lasha Kintsurashvili, Nina Kintsurashvili, Nika Kutateladze, Zauri Matikashvili, Nato Sirbiladze, and Beso Uznadze

David Apakidze (b. 1998, Poti, Georgia) is a visual artist and curator, and co-founder of Fungus Project and Fungus Gallery, queer art initiatives in the Caucasus region. He studied art history at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, where his primary focus was medieval Orthodox art – an influence that continues to shape his work.

His practice encompasses sculpture, embroidery, printmaking, and stained glass, reworking Georgian Orthodox iconography through a queer lens. His research-based approach examines the intersections of identity, tradition, and queerness.

Apakidze has participated in local and international residencies and exhibitions, including Lerblabor (Berlin, 2021), Open Out Festival (Tromsø, 2023), Gallery Artbeat (Tbilisi, 2024), Zachęta National Gallery of Art (Warsaw, 2024), and MeetFactory (Prague, 2025). In 2025, he received the Claus Michaletz Prize and a KVOST scholarship. KVOST presented his solo exhibition The Knight at the Crossroads as part of Berlin Art Week.

Tamo Jugeli (b. 1994, Tbilisi) is a self-taught Georgian artist whose journey into painting began after completing her studies in Journalism at David Aghmashenebeli University of Georgia (2013-2017). Now based in New York, Jugeli’s art is deeply invested in antirealism and intuition, marked by visually engrossing energy and a rejection of academicism.

Her palette—rich with dirty ochres, teals, vivid greens, and dark blacks—evokes a sense of raw, earthy presence, one that suggests depth and an almost primal engagement with the canvas. Jugeli’s paintings are not merely representations of the visible world; they are dynamic expressions of feeling and energy that pull the viewer into a space where the boundaries of light, dark, and form are in constant flux. The canvas becomes a terrain of exploration, where color and shape are not confined but liberated, allowing for a dialogue between figures, forms, and abstraction.

This tension between the rational and the irrational, the figurative and the abstract, is central to her work. Elements that may appear simple or fragmented are transformed into complex visual structures, constantly evolving, breaking apart, and reassembling. Each piece attains its own autonomy, creating a fluid spatial experience that challenges our perception and engages us in a deeper conversation about the boundaries of representation and abstraction.

Her approach mirrors the Apollonian and Dionysian forces that captivated the imaginations of her spiritual predecessors, embodying a refusal to be paralyzed by negativity. Her work, like that of Hitchcock’s famous quote, is about finding clarity amidst darkness. In an interview from 1964, Alfred Hitchcock defined happiness as 'a clear horizon,' describing the importance of creative freedom unfettered by negativity. This philosophy resonates deeply with Jugeli’s art, which embodies a pursuit of emotional and existential clarity. The play of light and shadow in her work becomes a meditation on overcoming pessimism, the idea that art—like life—can be a space for escape, transformation, and clarity, even in moments of uncertainty.

Jugeli has had solo exhibitions at Gladstone Gallery, Brussels, (2025); Karma, Los Angeles (2025); Tanya Leighton, Berlin (2024), Polina Berlin Gallery, New York (2023, 2022) and Gallery Artbeat, Tbilisi (2022, 2020). Group exhibitions include Galerie Balice Hertling, Paris (2023), Hill Art Foundation, New York (2023), and Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography, Mestia, Georgia (2021), among others.

Keti Kapanadze (b. 1962, Tbilisi) while still a student at the Art Academy in Tbilisi, she produced her first conceptual graphical and photo works in 1983, she was the first female conceptual artist in Georgia in Soviet times. Since that time her works are part of the permanent exhibition of the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the USSR at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, USA.

From 1990 to 1999 she worked abroad, supported by scholarships from the Sheffield City Polytechnic, the cca Contemporary Art Center, Glasgow, the BAK Swiss Federal Foundation, Berne, and the IAAB Christoph Merian Stiftung, Basel. She also won First Prize in Photography awarded by the ‘Open Society Georgia’ in 1997 in Tbilisi. She was also one of the editors of the Georgian art magazine ‘Signal’ which she helped launch in 1998.

In 2000 Keti left her country for Germany, supported by the Baumann Stiftung. In 2001, she was invited as Visiting Professor for the Painting Class a Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. In 2007 she was awarded a scholarship by Cité des Arts in Paris, Ministry of Science, Research and Culture, Paris, France. Her works are in important European collections, such as: Museum Bochum; Stuttgart State Gallery; Ministry of Culture, Stuttgart; European Patent Office, München; State Art State Gallery Göppingen; MMoma Moscow.
Today, Keti lives and works in Bonn, Germany.

Lasha Kintsurashvili (b.1968) is a Georgian painter, iconographer, fresco conservator and calligrapher. In 1985 he graduated from Physical Mathematical School named after V. M. Komarov. At the same time he attended an art specialized school of the Georgia Ministry of Education, in the field of Fine Arts. Lasha continued his studies in the same year at Georgian Technical University, at the architectural department in which he graduated in 1991. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and since gaining the Georgian Independence, Lasha has been involved in reviving the Georgian school of icon painting. In the 90s a small group of icon painters including Lasha Kintsurashvili started traveling around Georgia, especially in remote mountain regions such as Svaneti, copying and re-learning the lost tradition of fresco painting. In 1989-90 he participated in restoration of medieval murals in Svaneti. In 2025, a duo exhibition "Desert" featuring Lasha Kintsurashvili and Nina Kitsnurashvili took place in Stockholm, at Sweden's Konsthall C exhibition space.

Georgian-born, New York–based artist Nina Kintsurashvili’s (b. 1992, Tbilisi) practice is shaped by memory, fragmentation, and mediated experience within a center–periphery context. Interested in what it means to encounter culture indirectly through books, reproductions, and mediated images rather than direct access Kintsurashvili draws from personal archives spanning archaeology, art history and vernacular imagery, assembled through an ongoing engagement with Tbilisi’s Bukinist networks of second-hand book dealers.

As the daughter of a fresco conservator and icon painter, Kintsurashvili’s work examines the formal potential of absence created through fragmented histories and indirect encounters with images, considering incompleteness not as loss, but as a generative force within painting.

Within this context, abstraction operates as a gateway to hidden structures. Forms drawn from references gradually dissolve as their descriptive clarity breaks down and new formal relationships emerge. Her paintings are characterized by uncertain forms that resist fixed categorization while retaining traces of their origin, gestural brushwork, and layered surfaces. Built through cycles of accumulation and erasure, where multiple temporalities and references coexist, the surface becomes a central site of meaning. Through slow looking, revision and perceptual translation, her paintings explore the tension between what is visible and what remains unresolved.

Nika Kutateladze was born in 1989 in Tbilisi, Georgia, where he lives and works. He completed his education at Masters level at the Centre of Contemporary Art, Tbilisi (CCA-T) in 2013. Prior to that he studied on the faculty of Architecture at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts between 2007 and 2011.

The majority of the artworks comprise installations and sculptures, reflecting day-to-day consumerism and different environmental issues. His later artistic utterances challenge the transformative process of architectural spaces and urban environment, in general.

Over the past few years, Kutateladze has expanded his artistic practice to include painting. Working in oil on grounded wood drawing on the tradition of Orthodox iconography and, more recently, in oil on canvas, his paintings reflect on the everyday relationships of people living side by side in rural communities.

Kutateladze has had solo exhibitions at Mendes Wood DM, New York; Modern Art, London; Vitrine, London and Gallery Artbeat, Tbilisi. His works have been included in exhibitions at Chateau La Coste, Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade, France (2025); MAISON DES ARTS GEORGES & CLAUDE POMPIDOU, Cajarc, France (2024); CCA, Berlin, Germany (2024); Oxygen Biennial, Tbilisi, Georgia (2021); Foundation Cartier, Paris (2019); Tbilisi Architectural Biennial, Tbilisi, Georgia (2018); Kunsthalle Tbilisi, Georgia (2018); Centre of Contemporary Art Tbilisi, Georgia (2013) among others.

Zauri Matikashvili was born in the Georgian town of Qvareli. After studying fine arts in Münster and Düsseldorf, he now lives and works in Münster and Amsterdam. In his films, performances, installations, and sculptures, he questions the socio-cultural and political contexts of different societies and nations that shape the construction of identity in individual realities and families.

He is particularly interested in how narratives and images create community. He often focuses on people who otherwise receive little attention. His work fluctuates between observation, testimony, (media) creation and deliberate provocation. In many cases he combines video installations with objects made of ceramics, porcelain, wax, and metal, as well as found objects from nature. Besides, he experimentally coats ceramics with earth, metals, or dust.

Zauri Matikashvili's works have been shown in numerous exhibitions, for example at Off space BSMNT in Leipzig (2026), at the Julia Stoschek Foundation in Düsseldorf (2025), at Kunst in Tunnel (KIT) in Düsseldorf (2025), at the LWL Museum of Art and Culture in Münster (2025), at Het Documentaire Paviljoen in Amsterdam (2024), at Antimatter Media Art in Victoria (Canada, 2023), at Art Matters in Hangzhou (2023), at the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam (2023), in the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (2022), at International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen (2022), at Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof (2021) in Hamburg, at Münster Film Festival (2021), at HMKV in Dortmund (2021), at Atelier No. 63 PACT Zollverein in Essen (2020) and at Philara Collection in cooperation with Filmwerkstatt in Düsseldorf (2020).

Zauri Matikashvili was artist in residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten Amsterdam (2022–2024), at the Cité Internationale des Arts Paris (2022) and at PACT Zollverein in Essen (2021). He recently received fellowships from the Stiftung Kunstfonds (2025) and from the Kunststiftung NRW (2026). His works are part of the Collection of Contemporary Art of the Federal Republic of Germany, the collection of LWL Museum of Art and Culture, and private collections.

Nato Sirbiladze (b. 1955) was born in Tbilisi, Georgia and after finishing school she continued to study in the Pedagogic Institute to become a teacher. In different periods she worked at the National Library, at the Institute of Management and as a school teacher. Sirbiladze is a self-taught artist and started painting at the age of 31. Her artworks are made on paper and several hundreds of them are painted in gouache and aquarelle. Sirbiladze is an artist who has never been part of any artistic schools or groups. She has also rarely been mentioned in the narratives of the local artistic context and has continued her creative path independently. Until recently her representation in public spaces has been limited to a few occasions locally and abroad.

The artist's multi-layered works are rich with sacred motifs, phantasmagorical signs and collective memory. Surbiladze’s work evoke an imaginary portal to a transitory, liminal space, where the boundaries between profane and the sacred, between reality and imagination dissolve. Nato Sirbiladze's creative process involves a relationship with the 'other', the other self that embodies both memory and serves as a catalyst for change. Sirbiladze exhibits a strong identification with various authors, translating the original artist's images into her own artistic codes.

The artist skillfully constructs enigmatic and captivating worlds within her works. Through the introduction of dreamlike illusions, she intricately blurs the boundaries of time and space, challenging the viewer's perception. Marine and urban landscapes frequently serve as motifs in her works. Delicate and ethereal expressions of the female form can be observed in settings like Paliastom Lake or the Mediterranean coast, where they radiate the effects of sunlight and the light blue hues. Furthermore, the artist adeptly integrates surrounding landscapes into her artistic forms, creating a dynamic fusion between the human figure and the environment.

One of the main features of Nato Sirbiladze's work is the exploration of identity as cultural information and the subsequent infusion of vitality into this information. Sirbiladze's works embody memories within their intricate details, drawing inspiration from various sources such as Georgian painting traditions, medieval wall painting, and the legacy of Niko Pirosmani. Through a visual-linguistic game, the artist skillfully transforms hidden coded information into a luminous matrix.

Beso Uznadze (1968, Tbilisi, Georgia) lives and works in London, UK. His artistic oeuvre started as a portrait photographer. With his photos the artist managed to depict personalities of his sitters, showing both their vulnerability and strength. The viewer was able to sense the invisible connection between him and his models and become part of the dialogue, which occurred during the photo shoot.

In 2016 Uznadze started working for him in a totally new medium. His latest works are abstract, large-scale paintings. These abstractions can be interpreted as a replication of a certain style, but their authenticity guarantees a specific context and a high degree of individualism of the artist. The dynamics and internal organizations of these compositions are made with the connections of monotonous or angular and round shapes using a mechanic movement. Similarly to his photos Uznadze manages to have an invisible link with his paintings. The artist manages to project his emotional vulnerability to the canvas, which becomes reachable for the viewer when observing his paintings. Being it photography or painting, the artist uses the creative process for all the same purpose, freeing himself from the content and getting lost.