Hidden Sparks - Tekla Kiguradze Solo Show at Why Not Gallery

The first personal exhibition of Tekla Kighuradze will be opened at The Why Not Gallery on Saturday, June 25. 

The exhibition presents the artist’s musings on the transitional stage in life, that of leaving childhood behind and entering adulthood. In this journey of self-revelation and maturation, childhood memories suddenly attain an extra layer of warmth and importance to them. Suddenly those abrupt snapshots of careless childish fun, coming back as flashbacks, become so strong and vivid, the exact sensations are reconstructed, that of touch, of smell; those precious moments become what defines you as a person. 

Tekla seems to be dwelling on these dear recollections, that she picks up from her time-travel down the memory lane. By depicting her reminiscences on canvases, the artist seems to be giving physicality to the ephemeral and ethereal sensations that wither and disappear with time. These feelings are heightened compositionally when the artist chooses extreme cropping and focuses on depicting mere details. It reminds of how memories are recollected - fleeting seconds of some banal acts that have a sepia tinge to them. The artist uses a muted palette of sombre blues, greens and browns to further complement the mood of the series. 

Almost an act of rebelling against forgetting, the exhibition is an ode to those hidden sparks that light our way through life, act as shields when we need to fight the blues and offer shelter when we desperately search for one.