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Andro Semeiko Blue Horns Andro Semeiko Blue Horns
Dedicated to Eugenia Tabidze
Opening: Sat 26 Oct 7 – 9 pm
26 Oct – 25 Nov 2019
Project partner: SOLO
This exhibition is loosely based on the works of Blue Horns poets, their lives and the socio-political circumstances surrounding their work. Andro Semeiko creates painterly installation at Erti Gallery where boundaries are blurred between writing and doodling; drawing and painting; abstract and realistic representation.
Text by curator Elene Abashidze reflecting on Andro Semeiko’s works:
“My fingers shrink when signing. These gadgets lately… I open the folder for notes on my 5.45inch phossne screen to make another try at signing a document. It does not take long for me to notice all the imperfections of my screen-based signature. Once again, I start from scratch and draw a line by hand, but it looks so artificial.
It is true, it has been long since I last used a notebook instead of the ‘Notes’ application,
yet my fingers are used to typing, not drawing on the touch screen. Drawing is somewhat terrifying. My fingers perform poorly, acting like bodies on their first yoga class. It is true, not that I have taken yoga classes in ages, since my freelancer life style and small gadgets give me the flexibility to work anytime at any place. All that is needed is access to the internet and fingers, better start taking yoga classes for finger practice?
It has been quite a long while since I smoked my last cigarette, but the situation makes me crave for another drag. I grab one from my grandparents’ pockets. It seems one can never forget how to smoke. My fingers stretch again drawing a fine curving line in the room. Smoke follows the gesture, leaving a curvy trace in the space. It would have been so much easier to sign the document in space, with cigarette smoke.
I now stretch my back, and in full confidence return to the gadget. My stretched fingers confidently shrink again to fit the screen. The lines they draw are far too wide for a narrow document such this.
This reminds me that smoking no longer fits the everyday, it definitely is from another time, belonging to that ‘other’ time from the past, when fingers appeared stretched and proud in spacious rooms, and cabinets for signing documents.
Mainly, one can describe the times, as the manly times they were. Hand gestures modify as times change. In fact ‘the’ times may dictate hand gestures. This makes me think whether the ‘times’ were manly first, or the gestures made them manly?”
Andro Semeiko (b. 1975, Ozurgeti, Georgia) studied at Tbilisi State Academy of Art (1998), Goldsmiths College (2001) and the Royal Academy Schools (2006). He lives and works in London. Semeiko has been widely exhibited internationally including: ‘Polka Dots and Curls’ (solo), narrative projects, London, UK (2018-19); ‘Unveiling Vazha Pshavela’, Asia House, London, UK (2019); ‘Reminiscence: Parajanov’, Close-Up Cinema, London, UK (2019); ‘The Will’, 3rd Tbilisi Triennial, Georgia (2018); SAMUK Biennale, Nojeonbong Art Park & Museum, South Korea (2018); ‘Nature Morte’, Guildhall Art Gallery, London, UK, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Wrocław, Poland (2017-18); ‘Nostalgia for the Future’, Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taiwan (2016); ‘Towards Understanding Huai Su’ (solo), Soulangh Park, Tainan, Taiwan (2015); ‘An Artist’s Workshop for Unveiling Emotions’ (solo), BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (2013); ‘Expanded Painting’, Prague Biennial 4, Czech Republic (2009). Semeiko is the recipient of British Institution Award, London (2004 ); Berwick Gymnasium Fellowship (2009) and PEER Residency (2013).
Author Ana Kordzaia-Samadashvili, fashion designer Manana Antelidze and Andro Semeiko will launch new book “Unveiling Vazha Pshavela” during the exhibition opening.
New book “Unveiling Vazha Pshavela”
ISBN: ISBN 978-0-9564683-4-5
hardcover 192pp
The Garnett Press, Queen Mary University of London, UK
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Fashionable Gent Fashionable Gent
acrylic and oil on canvas
31 × 26 cm
2019
Blue Horns I I Blue Horns I I
acrylic and oil on canvas
31 × 26 cm
2019
Blue Horns II Blue Horns II
acrylic and oil on canvas
31 × 26 cm
2019
Friends I Friends I
acrylic and oil on canvas
31 × 26 cm
2019
Poet I Poet I
acrylic and oil on canvas
31 × 26 cm
2019
Poet V Poet V
acrylic and oil on canvas
30 × 24 cm
2019
Poet II Poet II
acrylic and oil on canvas
61 × 46 cm
2019
Poet III Poet III
acrylic and oil on canvas
36 × 26 cm
2019
Poet IV Poet IV
acrylic and oil on canvas
31 × 26 cm
2019
Smoker Smoker
acrylic and oil on canvas
31 × 26 cm
2019
Corrugated Screen Corrugated Screen
acrylic and oil on canvas
31 × 26 cm
2019
Game I Game I
acrylic and oil on canvas
31 × 26 cm
2019
Game II Game II
acrylic and oil on canvas
31 × 26 cm
2019
Poet VI Poet VI
acrylic and oil on canvas
31 × 26 cm
2019
Poet VII Poet VII
acrylic and oil on canvas
31 × 26 cm
2019
Friends II Friends II
acrylic and oil on canvas
36 × 28 cm
2019
Poet VIII Poet VIII
acrylic and oil on canvas
30 × 24 cm
2019
Vazha Vazha
acrylic and oil on canvas
170 × 110 cm
2018
Corrugated Screen II Corrugated Screen II
acrylic and oil on canvas
170 × 110 cm
2019
Metapolka Metapolka
acrylic and oil on canvas
170 × 110 cm
2019
Queen Tamar Queen Tamar
acrylic and oil on canvas
170 × 110 cm
2019
Bullhorse Bullhorse
acrylic and oil on canvas
170 × 110 cm
2019
First Night in Tbilisi First Night in Tbilisi
acrylic and oil on canvas
170 × 110 cm
2019
Bleeding Stones Bleeding Stones
acrylic and oil on canvas
170 × 110 cm
2019
Neck Stuck Out Neck Stuck Out
acrylic and oil on canvas
170 × 110 cm
2019
Writer Writer
oil on silk chiffon
264 × 173 cm
2019
Blue Horns Blue Horns
Curriculum vitae
1975, Born in Georgia. Lives and works in London
Andro Semeiko is a Georgian born and London-based artist who constructs multi-layered installations based on his practice as a painter in conjunction with empirical research into history and literature. Semeiko has been collaborating with writers, scientists, psychologists, actors and dancers and his work is often site-specific and multi-disciplinary.
In his painting Semeiko employs symbolism associated with armour in Renaissance and Baroque painting for creating a series of works in which a suit of armour becomes a hero engaged on absurd ‘knightly quests’ such as surfing, hang-gliding, sipping cocktails, eating ice cream etc. Semeiko is “messing-up the orthodox divisions of experience – history and the present, big and small, inside and outside, modernity and antiquity. By telling tales that mix these up, Semeiko offers us a place where the division between what is actual and what is possible are put into tension. … Do we believe him? It doesn’t matter. What matters is not so much that the stories told are real, or have happened, or are possible. What matters is that these stories encourage us to think that things have the potential to be different, to change.” JJ Charlesworth (art critic, ArtReview).
The paintings of knights coexist with Semeiko’s large-scale gestural paintings of Architecture and seascapes inspired by 17th-18th century British painting, and which operate as a mise-en-scene backdrop for installations. “For Semeiko, painting is a practice that moves like a loom shuttle, sliding in and out of the forms of conventional representation: at times fiction is smothered by smooth, amalgamated brush strokes; in others it puffs up – as if agitated – and it is here that painting is used to reveal deception, showing itself as the material and indicating itself as the object.” Alberto Mugnaini (art critic, Flash Art).
Education
2006-08 Research Fellowship, The Royal Academy of Arts, London
2003-06 Postgraduate Diploma, The Royal Academy of Arts, London
2000-01 MFA in Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, University of London
1998-00 BA in Fine Art, Utrecht School of the Arts, The Netherlands
Solo exhibitions and projects
2015 Towards Understanding the Drunk Su, Soulangh Culture Park, Tainan City, Taiwan
2014 Only Words Can Tell You How I Feel, TAP, Southend-on-Sea, UK, collaboration with Amy McKenny and Tom Morton
2013 An Artist’s Workshop for Unveiling Emotions, BALTIC 39, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, collaboration with Sally O’Reilly
2013 Andro Semeiko: Open Studio, events PEER, London, UK, collaboration with Sally O’Reilly and Zinovy Zinik
2012 Le Grand Charmer, Phoenix Gallery, Exeter, UK
2011 Artist Book- Lily of Blythenhale, with texts by Daniel Harbour, Shelley von Strunckel and others
2011 Lily of Blythenhale, Acme Project Space, London, UK
2010 Artist Book – Unveiling: Rocket MT2010, with texts by Neil Mulholland and JJ Charlesworth
2010 Unveiling, Berwick Gymnasium Art Gallery, Berwick-upon-Tweed, UK
SELECTED Group exhibitions AND PROJECTS
2016 Nature Morte, Konsthallen vid Bohusläns Museum, Sweden
2016 Nostalgia for the Future by Yu-Chen Wang, Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taiwan
2016 FYI, Barry Room, Taipei Artist Village, Taiwan
2015 Collaborators 4, Roaming ROOM, London, UK
2015 Nature Morte, Hå gamle prestegard, Stavanger, Norway
2015 Art Lending Library, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK
2014 Comedy and Menace: Birthday Party, Andro Semeiko & Shino Yanai, White Conduit Projects, London, UK
2014 Teen Paranormal Romance, collaboration with Anna K.E., The Renaissance Society, Chicago, USA
2014 ONSITE, TAP, Southend-on-Sea, UK, selected by Andrew Hunt and Mike Nelson
2013 Artist Book- The Holy Triangle by Semeiko, O’Reilly and Zinik, launches; PEER & Waterstones Piccadilly, London, UK
2012 Art Lending Library, Market Gallery, Glasgow, UK
2012 Take Shelter in the World, Boston University Art Gallery ANNEX, Boston, USA
2011 Against Anti Intellectualism: Andro Semeiko, Calum Stirling, SWG3 Gallery, Glasgow, UK
2011 Sotheby’s auction and exhibition, St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, London, UK
2011 Bad Romance, project by Laura Edbrook and Norman James Hogg, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
2010 In Town – Screening, ISIS Arts/AND Festival, Eldon Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
2010 Art Pie Project, TÜYAP Istanbul Art Fair-ARTIST 2010, Turkey
2010 Happy End, Guest Projects – Yinka Shonibare’s Space, London, UK
2009 Expanded Painting, PRAGUE BIENNALE 4, Prague, Czech Republic
2008 Out of Place Day to Day, De Kunstvlaai A.P.I., Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2006 Another Product, Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK
2004 Caution: Uneven Surfaces, temporarycontemporary, London, UK
2003 Charlie’s Place, Annely Juda Fine Art, London, UK
2002 Shine, The Lowry Gallery, Manchester, UK
2001 New Contemporaries 2001, Camden Arts Center, London and Sunderland Museum, UK
Awards and RESIDENCES
2016 Artist in Residence, Taipei Artist Village, Taiwan
2014 ONSITE Residency, TAP, Southend-on-Sea, UK
2013 PEER Residency, London, UK
2011 Jessica Wilkes Award, Acme Studios, London, UK
2009 Berwick Gymnasium Fellowship 2009-10, Berwick-upon-Tweed, UK
2004 The British Institution Award, The Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
2001 Kunstanjer 2000, Prince Bernard Culture Fund, The Netherlands
Tags: ANDRO SEMEIKO