Ketevan Gvinepadze (b. 1988) is a visual artist and conceptual photographer based in Barcelona. She completed her master's degree in Studio Arts in 2019 in Barcelona. Her artistic practice encompasses a diverse range of media, including digital and analog photography, Polaroids, video, art installations, and ceramics.
Ketevan’s work primarily explores themes of gender and politics, creating a specific visual language that weaves together autobiographical elements with the rich tapestry of Georgian culture and the evolving post-Soviet landscape. Her multifaceted approach allows her to delve deeply into the subjects, presenting them through various angles.
Represented by Fotografía Gallery in Tbilisi, Georgia.
SOLO:
2024: Atypical, Private Landscapes, photography and ceramic objects (Barcelona, Spain)
2018: Centre d'Art Maristany, Colouring Book (Sant Cugat del Vallès, Catalunya, Spain)
GROUP:
2024: Alte Schmelze, IDENTITIES, Group show in the frame of RAY TRIENNIAL of Photography (Curated by Jacqueline Jakobi Milán, Frankfurt, Germany)
2023: Unit 1 Gallery, Annual Show (curated by Delphian Gallery, London, UK)
2023: Illustrate Gallery, Photography Exhibition Rifts (Barcelona, Spain)
2022: Nouroom, Processing by Ketevan Gvinepadze (Photo book launch, Barcelona, Spain)
2018: Centre d'Art Maristany, Colouring Book (Sant Cugat del Vallès, Catalunya, Spain)
2017: Tbilisi Photo Festival, Screening of the project Compromising during the Night of Photography (Tbilisi, Georgia)
2011: KOLGA TBILISI Photo, Part of the main contest show for several years, Winner of the Best Documentary series category (Tbilisi, Georgia)
2023: LA RECTORIA Residencia, Catalunya, Spain
2016: Batumi Backyard Stories, Batumi, Georgia
2015: GeoAIR Artist Residency, Tbilisi, Georgia
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
The artist behind "Fit" approaches the project from a deeply personal perspective, grappling with body dysmorphia rooted from her cultural background, which adds layers of significance to the exploration of body image and self-analysis present in the project. By stepping back and examining her figure from a distance, the artist seeks to gain a new understanding of her very own somatic existence and consciousness.
Through the female lens, "Fit" transcends traditional notions and derives benefit from the multiple meanings of the word "fit." Beyond its literal connotations of physical fitness, the project examines the idea of fitting oneself into societal norms, roles, and expectations. Each photograph in the series is composed to evoke a sense of introspection and agency. Through the use of the flesh and subtle symbolism, the images challenge traditional power dynamics and celebrate the strength and resilience.
Ultimately, "Fit" is a visual representation of an on-going research—it's an exacting exploration of identity, autonomy, and self-acceptance. It invites viewers to question their own perceptions of aesthetics and to embrace the inherent complexity and diversity of the
human experience.
Currently, the project comprises over 30 images, several of which are permanently represented by Fotografía Gallery in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Memories, photo archives, traditional food and landscapes with interior details soon became the centre of focus, matching the past with contemporary.
Published in Purple Fashion Magazine - Travel.
Full article
In the early 1980s designer Loris Azzarro crafted a made-to-measure black dress which was sewn to be worn in a photoshoot for a Playboy France cover featuring Olivia’s mother as a model and shot by James Baes.
Her mother only ever wore it for the photo shoot. Unfortunately, the actual cover photo is nowhere to be found.
It is a hand-me-down from a mother to daughter.
In this project, Olivia reflects on the very personal, intimate connection of the dress with her mother, whose female body wore it some forty years ago before her for a very specific purpose. Perplexed by the implications of why it was crafted to begin with — a 1980s Playboy France Cover and its destined male gaze — she mulls over what it means to be a muse, an object of admiration. Combining personal impressions and autobiographical fragments with site-specific images from where Olivia now lives in rural Catalunya, Black Magic (The Thread) tells the story of a mother-daughter connection through the specific lens of female sexuality and image. Deciding the dress holds a complex type of magic particular to women and their fraught place in and outside of the spotlight, the project is an ode to her mother and the dress which reunites them, opening a discussion around what it means to be as pretty as a picture and questioning those aesthetics by revealing mistakes and imperfections.
Essay by Olivia Baes
Original images and photography: Ketevan Gvinepadze Mixed media collages: Olivia Baes, Ketevan Gvinepadze
Interior cities - continuous visual narrative
When I look at Ketevan’s selection of images, I think of Anaïs Nin and her phrase, which goes something like this: Messages are transmitted by the eye, sometimes without words at all…
I feel the same way, at a glance completely foreign worlds collide with each other: fragments of delicate nudes, blown out candle on a birthday cake, bust of a saint in the cut, yellowed family pictures from the old times, a lion figurine from fair and many other images that seem to come from different worlds.
Yes, certainly they are different worlds that we all carry within us, that Ketevan carries within herself and comes to the surface depending on the phase of life and the mood of the day.
These images are at the same time like daydreams, excerpts from a diary, or even projections of their own mental state, sometimes melancholic, thoughtful, erotic, tender, playful. They are like visual narratives that do not necessarily need a fixed beginning or end. The images are in a constant process of transformation. This makes me think of Anaïs Nin again and her sentences: “I have the power to multiply myself. I am not only one, but many women.”
Teona Gogichaishvili, Visual Artist / Curator / Tutor