In the early 2000s, Koka Ramishvili’s images could still be connected to the everyday world, representing various aspects of our reality: landscapes, train stations, airfields, coffee cups, characters. Nevertheless, for Ramishvili, an image is more than simply a representation of reality; it is the catalyst of a formal dialogue with the medium’s surface and its tangible boundaries.
The series Back to the Future (2011) presents a subtle play between image and canvas. Its layers of thinly superimposed paint, in the style of Flemish painting, stop a few centimetres from the edge of the canvas, making the artificial nature of the image visible. Slightly off-centre, this proves to be a deliberate construction in relation to reality, an image within an image.
In this same spirit, the photographic series LO – LO (Agenda), LO (A Boat), LO (Boy), LO (Coffee) (2015) – also returns to what Ramishvili considers to be “the two aspects of painting”: the idea of a window (onto something) and that of a surface. Like movie screens, Ramishvili’s images try to tell stories, but prove to be artefacts themselves. Thus the artist encourages a subtle deconstruction of traditional iconography, calling into question the past-future dialectic as well as the mimetic power of images.
The series Back to the Future (2011) presents a subtle play between image and canvas. Its layers of thinly superimposed paint, in the style of Flemish painting, stop a few centimetres from the edge of the canvas, making the artificial nature of the image visible. Slightly off-centre, this proves to be a deliberate construction in relation to reality, an image within an image.
In this same spirit, the photographic series LO – LO (Agenda), LO (A Boat), LO (Boy), LO (Coffee) (2015) – also returns to what Ramishvili considers to be “the two aspects of painting”: the idea of a window (onto something) and that of a surface. Like movie screens, Ramishvili’s images try to tell stories, but prove to be artefacts themselves. Thus the artist encourages a subtle deconstruction of traditional iconography, calling into question the past-future dialectic as well as the mimetic power of images.