Teona Yamanidze

Georgian Contemporary Art by Teona Yamanidze - Against the Light

2021

Teona Yamanidze is a Georgian artist born in 1988 who lives between New York, USA Tbilisi, Georgia. Her works reflect on her personal experiences as an immigrant Georgian woman. Through creating abstract structural compositions in opposition to the figure she tries to draw a parallel between the social construct of Georgian culture and its interaction with the western mindset. Each work tells the fictional story of a girl, a boy, a woman, or a representative of the minority during or after the violent act of the abuse and displacement. In her recent body of work, she is trying to construct a myth-of-self, which casts a negative light on the relationship between the expectations of society and self-examination. Yamanidze's works have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including the General Consulate of Georgia in New York, Winzavod Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, Berlin International Art Week, and Mars Center for contemporary culture in Moscow. She was involved as artist researcher with the Everson Museum for Contemporary Art for the exhibition titled “That Day Now: Shadows Cast by Hiroshima” devoted to the 70 year anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. Teona is a also recipient of the Edmund S. Muskie Fellowship'17 for young leaders, Fulbright research scholarship and Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant.