Ketuta

Question 1: What is your name and your name at birth? What nationality is the passport you currently hold?

Ketevan Alexi-Meskhishvili, I hold Georgian and US passports.

Question 2: When and where does your biography as an artist start?

In the premature babies’ incubator probably :)))

Question 3: How many times have you shown your work in Georgia and when? / How many times have you shown your work elsewhere?

In Georgia, I participated in around 5 exhibitions and elsewhere, in about 50, but I live and work abroad so it seems normal.

Question 4: Why did you leave? / Why did you go back?

My parents left and took me with them to New York City when I was a teenager. Because of the civil war. I come back to Georgia all the time, I consider it one of my homes and I love to spend time with my friends here.

Question 5: Does your work reflect your biography?

Probably.

Question 6: Do you have any influences from any Georgian visual art tradition which you apply to your work? Why?/Why not?

I am trying to think of what is a Georgian visual art tradition. Theater comes to mind. There is a decorative element in Georgian culture that I play around with I think. Also, a sense of the absurd that one finds in Russian literature has been formative for me. Otherwise I am also an American artist in that, I was educated there and do feel close to American sense of humor and pop culture.

Question 7: Would you define your practice as feminist?

I think so.

It is a topic that is often on my mind. On the other hand, it is not really choice. I think any female identifying person producing any kind of culture automatically creates feminist work due to the fact that they are voicing an experience that has been muted historically.

Question 8: Are you an active actant in the art scene of your current place of residence.

I am a private person and work privately. I have exhibited often in Germany and the US, but I don’t know how active a participant in the scene that makes me.