In this heterogeneous exhibition, Ketevan Gvinepadze presents a fusion of mediums that explores the relationship between clay and photography, two raw and primary artistic languages that converge in an intimate and visceral dialogue. Gvinepadze’s work investigates the interaction between the materiality of clay, in its most intuitive form, and the imperfect and unpretentious representation of the human body, stripping flesh and the body of their traditional aesthetics to create a new visual language.
This photographic series of self-portraits, initiated in 2014, occupies a central place in this exhibition. This project, which has evolved over the course of a decade, reveals the duality between concealment and revelation, playing with the viewer’s anticipation while challenging conventional conceptions of the body. What usually remains hidden is revealed here, transforming the human body into a conceptual canvas that transcends its physical form, taking photography beyond its two-dimensional plane with the help of the moldable properties of clay.
In dialogue with photography, Gvinepadze introduces clay as a material that resonates with the ideas of fragility, solidity, lightness and stillness, establishing a relationship between the materiality of the body and that of the clay itself. The ceramics, as an extension of her investigation of the body, become both a physical and symbolic support, reinforcing the artist’s exploration of the tensions between the imperfect and the perfect. In this encounter of mediums, ceramics and photography are not opposites, but rather complementary, finding a point of continuity—an extension of sight and touch.
Text by Claudia Uranga