Project ArtBeat: Daily Routine of Georgian Artist Mamuka Japharidze During Covid-19
Project ArtBeat is a contemporary art gallery based in Tbilisi. They've decided to ask artists what their daily routine is like during the pandemic and how the respond it creatively. Gallery Artbeat interviewed Georgian artist, Mamuka Japharidze.
Gallery Artbeat: Can you tell us about your daily routine during COVID-19?
Mamuka Japharidze: Each day I begin by getting up early, having Breakfast and by sharing livestream of sunrise in social network. Then I feed my dogs, replanting my plants here and there and pouring water. In my free time I paint or doing something else. To be honest I don’t feel myself confined, I have few neighbors in lockdown and I talk to them. I am still trying not to go out, because they know that I’ve just arrived from England, I even recognized that at the beginning they were afraid of me. To be straightforward I like this situation, because sometimes people take a lot energy when they try to help or make something good for me, but in reality they take my time and interrupting me to do my things.
Gallery Artbeat: How have the unforeseen circumstances affected/inspired your artistic practice and how have you chosen to respond creatively?
Mamuka Japharidze: I had plans and projects on which I have already been working, preparing situation for it and conducting research on surrounding topics. I planned to do exhibition in wine factory, but everything has stopped. Once something is interrupted it’s very hard to restart, because the terms and different factors have changed, especially when you work season by season, when you depend on it and follow that agenda. I was feeling emptiness. For a while I painted and wanted to learn new things. Once quite interesting thing happened to me. I saw winepress made by lime-tree, which I resembled at ship. It settled in my mind to remake a winepress as Dionysus’s ship, so I was captured by that idea. It is known, that when Dionysus was sailing by ship he would go upon the sails. So, I thought for myself to plant vine in winepress, but then realized that it should be planted in “Kvevri” filled by soil… After that I started painting “kvevri’s” vessels and simultaneously came up with idea to create a garden with collection of monochrome “kvevris” with different sizes and colors. Drawing is fine but not enough to realize them fully. So these are my ideas during my quarantine.