Teona Yamanidze
Painting
Biography
Teona Yamanidze is a New York based Georgian visual artist. She was born and grew up in the family of Georgian immigrants in Moscow, Russia.
Yamanidze's works have been exhibited both nationally and internationally, including Winzavod Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, Berlin International Art Week, and Mars center for contemporary culture in Moscow. She was involved in a project with the Everson Museum for Contemporary Art titled “That Day Now: Shadows Cast by Hiroshima” devoted to the 70 year anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. She has been an artist, creating show-specific artwork as well as a curator and researcher within the archives of the Museum in preparation for the exhibit. Teona is a recipient of the Edmund S. Muskie Fellowship'17 for young leaders, Fulbright research scholarship and Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant.
Her recent body of work is an attempt to convey the sensation of alienation, connected to tragic facts from the past that, were concealed during a certain period of her life. Something that she didn’t know about her family or she did not had an awareness of it until now. Her origin is deeply connected with stereotyping her as a woman back home. In Georgia you do get gender specific treatment disregarding background and education. Her work reflects on her personal encounters within the social construct of Post Soviet counties especially in Georgian culture and generate a cast of mythological characters and narrative scenarios culled from the imposed societal edifice of the position of women, children/young girls in society.
She strives to recognize the radical change of young Georgian women. Feminism is still an exotic phenomenon — unacceptable in traditional Georgian families or it is simply misinterpreted. However, now things must change. Her works focuses on documenting the abject persons or others who are forgotten, during moments of conflict pulling back the curtain on the delusions and oppressive taboos still preserved within post-Soviet and western societal dogmas.
Gallery
