Author of the article: Nino Urushadze

“The fact that I was called a scandalous artist is not my goal,” says Lia Ukleba, a feminist artist from Kutaisi, whose works have often caused noisy discussions in society. We met Lia in Kutaisi, in her small apartment-workshop, on the walls of which women tell the stories of their lives and struggles. Each of them shares their experience of being a woman, and you realize that these stories of fear, resistance, pain, strength, victory, and liberation are your stories, too — everything that unites us women.

Childhood

Her childhood, which she spent in the village of Etseri, Terjola region, was full of love and warmth.

“I spent my childhood surrounded by great love – my mother, father and sisters. I was somewhere in the seventh grade when my parents were going to return to Kutaisi, but I didn’t follow. I told them that I wanted to graduate with my classmates. This is the happiest period of my life, and I am grateful to my parents for spending my childhood in the village,” recalls Lia.

The years spent in the village, the love received from parents, positive emotions and memories that connect her with his family, follow her to this day and have helped her many times to cope with life’s difficulties.

Her father was a role model for him – the person who had the greatest influence in the process of forming her personality. When she talks about his impressive and vivid childhood memories, she recalls one episode, how her father overstepped his authority and showed that she could make decisions on her own.

We read together, we played together… I asked a lot of questions and he answered everything with amazing calmness and patience. When I was already a teenager, I asked my father something and he said, “you already know more than me, and I don’t have an answer to this question anymore.” I don’t know whether he knew it or not, but he made me step over his authority. That day I realized that I am a big girl and I already know everything. It was very important for me, and to this day I think that this is what a parent must do — they must step over their own authority and not leave their children under their influence all their lives.

Lia recalls that she had many hobbies as a child, she was “abnormally fond” of reading books, but “most of all” was drawing.

Kutaisi and Returning to Herself

Although drawing was her greatest love and passion since childhood, she chose another profession. The expectations of her family and surrounding people also influenced her decision.

“My parents thought that painting was not a serious business and that I should either become a philologist or a historian – these professions were very fashionable then. Relatives and friends constantly encouraged me to do this. I also somehow believed that drawing is not my thing, and what the adults told me was smarter. I made a mistake and they made a mistake.”

She entered the university and graduated from the faculty, which was not even close to painting. She majored in child psychology, although she has never worked in this profession for a single day. After that, she walked a lot and searched for herself, sometimes here, sometimes there. She worked on television, radio, in a kindergarten, as a teacher at a school… she even tried business.

“Finally, I discovered that, no, everything is futile and I must return to my main calling, my main love,” Lia recalls.

“I remember this turning point very well. I was 36 years old when I realized that I was starting a new life. It was my arrival at Radio “Old City” and starting to work there, interacting with the people there. There were artists working on the radio, I became friends with them and realized that I had been in sleep mode for so long. I said to myself — “Lia, you have not been yourself during these 20 years. Here you will become the person you were meant to be and forgot you were.” And the day I realized that, I started crying. My friends and colleagues looked at me in amazement, no one understood what was making me cry. I knew exactly what made me cry — it was a catharsis, a great awakening in my life.”

It has a special connection with Kutaisi. Before she finally settled here, she spent several years in Tbilisi, then due to family circumstances she had to return to Kutaisi, which she was very nervous about at first, but now she thinks that it was necessary for her and Kutaisi also acquired a new meaning for her.

“Kutaisi and this environment brought me back to myself. In this city, I have relationships that I have never had before, and it is absolutely sincere love, a great desire to grow each other and develop each other. We really raised each other, helped to shape each other and squeeze out our maximum, our talents. We were able to do all this for each other.”

What Do Women Have to Say?

“You may laugh, but feminist values ​​first appeared in me when I read Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren,” Lia tells us. She didn’t know then what the word “feminist” meant, but she understood that Pippi was the perfect girl for her, who could break all stereotypes; An example of how strong and free she wanted to be. In her memory, thinking about femininity and strong femininity begins from here.

When asked who are the women from her paintings, she answers that there are not only Georgian women here – there are women from all over the world and they live in all societies.

There are women here who live, who kill, who fight, who are liberated, who are afraid and who go through absolutely everything, experience everything. I want to tell all the stories that happen to women, and with this visual representation, I want to talk about their inner state – how they feel, what kind of life they want and how they have to live it.

In one of the last series she worked on this spring, she took one of her dresses and created several canvases — one woman’s story.

“I wanted to tell this story with several canvases. “Woman with a Molotov Cocktail” is about rebellion and intransigence. Regarding any topic that we don’t like and worry about, we should have a reflection, we should rebel, we should definitely fight and not accept the existing oppression.

Lia Ukleba

As for “chess”, a woman and a man play here. Of course, the starting conditions are better for the man and he starts the game. Behind these seemingly obedient hands is a man who challenges the opposite sex to an equal battle, and no one knows who will win. Unfortunately, we are in a battle right now. I believe that the relationship between a man and a woman should be based on friendship, respect and love, and not on fighting, although today we are facing a different reality.

On the canvas where there are boots, I wanted to express that femininity is not only about being sexy and charming, femininity is more than just one aspect, it is multifaceted.”

One of her canvases, “In the Name of Love” is reminiscent of Chagall’s famous work and deals with violence against women and femicide. There a couple in love is flying, and here a boy in a couple in love kills a girl in the name of love.

This is a very heavy and painful topic for me. Sometimes I think that we have moved on from this story, as if we have become more tolerant, we are working on these topics, and suddenly this terrible disappointment comes in the form of another femicide.

Lia Ukleba

“Woman as a reproductive being, as a mother, I was thinking about this when I was working on this painting. Bare breasts mean that to me. To hold a rabbit in her arms as a baby is the fear of motherhood. A fear that I have experienced myself, since I gave birth at a very young age. I wanted to show these doubts in the expression of this young girl, what doubts a pregnant woman has when she has to give birth to her first child – how ready is she for it, whether she can take such a big responsibility on herself. It was so unfamiliar to me, I had no idea what motherhood was. Obviously, I was afraid. My son was already twenty years old when I painted this,” she tells us about the canvas in which she reflected her personal experience.

Lia Ukleba

She is preparing for the exhibition in October. This time she has a free topic to think about and paints her favorite city, Kutaisi. She says that working on this type of landscapes is a very pleasant process for her to interact with colors, unlike the canvases on which there are women.

“I have very strong passions with these canvases – I think about the formation of a character, their moods, I have a story to tell. What I’m painting now has more of a “vibe” of happiness. I just have to work with colors and create a mood with those colors. When I work on those canvases, the painting is in the background and the story comes to the fore. It doesn’t make me happy, it’s hard work, a hard emotional process.”

Lia Ukleba received the Kato Mikeladze Award in 2015. Before that, her work “The Virgin with a toy pistol” caused a lot of noise. Part of the society considered the painting provocative, an insult to the church and religious feelings. The negative wave was so strong that she was even offered to leave the country.

Lia Ukleba

“Was I thinking about this resonance? Yes, I thought, my friends also warned me that this would be a big story, and if I was ready for it. I thought I was ready. Even in the epistle, Ilia II said that no one has ever insulted Georgia like that. It was very hard then, they threatened me with death and a thousand insanities. It was 2013, then I still didn’t know that I could be sued. I used to go to a psychologist, I thought that they would follow me to kill me, especially in Tbilisi. In this regard, Kutaisi is a very tolerant city, nothing has changed in my relations here. There were small inconveniences with my relatives, but my family was very supportive, they showed me a lot of support and they told me all this. I felt supported by people who love me, who I love and who I respect.”

I am like this, if I have something to say, I can’t keep it in my heart. Despite the enormous pains that I received and experienced many times – fear, humiliation and insult – to this day I do not regret for a second what happened, and if necessary, I will have such topics again, I will definitely repeat them.

“My goal is to have a fully formed, well-argued statement. If this saying will be something undoubtable, will be interesting and will create discussion fields, I will definitely paint such works, I will definitely say such a statement.”

Russian Law and Independent Artists

Lia has a long experience of cooperation with non-governmental organizations. Within the framework of various projects, she had the opportunity to share her creativity with the public through street painting. As she says, this is not just a business relationship — Lia shares the same ideas and values ​​that these organizations serve.

“Everyone likes to leave a mark. We know the street art of the caves, when the first lines, the first strokes were recorded by a person on the wall. Therefore, to this day, we humans have this passion. Of course, it’s nice when I go to other cities and see my works there too, when some people take photos with these paintings. It makes me very happy.”

She calls the current political situation in Georgia catastrophic. According to her, the country was on the path of development and democracy, but in recent years we are going backwards, which she connects with the government of “Georgian Dream”. It is hoped that this regression will end in October and Georgia will return to the course it has followed for the past 30 years — the path of freedom and progress.

The Russian law is terrible for the development of our country. Fighting and patriotic people are labeled as agents of foreign influence completely unfairly. Decent people cannot tolerate this. I consider myself among these worthy people and I will never make any compromises, I will not register as an agent in this country. I prefer to leave the country altogether. This law also prevents me from working – if I have had any project, or I have invited, all of them were encouraged and financed by the European Union or the West, therefore, I automatically become the object of this law. And not just me, any independent artist.

“This government was prone to censorship, we have had to fight against it for a long time. We remember some absurd demands regarding the insulting of religious feelings, which touched me personally and which is a completely absurd story – you cannot justify what a religious feeling is in general and then insult it. A thousand such nonsense was uttered by the “dream” government, yet somehow we resisted and seemed to be winning in various aspects. Recently, their movement towards Russia has become completely uncontrolled. All masks have already been removed and everything has been deciphered, they are no longer hiding where their path is.”

She also responds to another recently adopted law – the homophobic, hate, censorship law, which Lia calls “absurd” and says that it is completely incompatible with democratic principles. In her opinion, this law not only hurts the queer community, but also their families, relatives and loved ones, and the whole society suffers the consequences.

“Children are also affected by these laws, who are deprived of the opportunity to receive sex education. Some people think that they will teach children something impure and bad. This is absolute madness and a piece of propaganda – misinforming people about sex education and giving me a lot of bad news: pedophilia, rapes, early marriages and a thousand miseries that follow this illiteracy. They are aimed at raising as many uneducated generations as possible, limiting human thinking as much as possible, so that they can manage themselves well. It’s a simple story.

My only hope is a civil society that is very active, very involved. We are not facing this terrible pressure and we are fighting for a better future for our country, for a better future for our children. This is a very important story and a decisive battle that we will definitely win.”