June 7, 2008
Anna Rekhviashvili, Georgia Today

Their works are usually exhibited together, and even if they’re having a personal exhibition, it still means that the artwork of these two artists will be displayed in one exhibition hall.

In fact, these personal exhibitions would be more accurately described as “family exhibitions”.

This is a family of two painters – Maia Ramishvili and Mamuka Didebashvili – who have spent nearly all their creative and personal life together; who stand side by side in one workroom, and are the best critics of each other’s work.

Their story began in early 80s when both of them became students at Tbilisi’s I. Nikoladze Art School, and then continued to study in the State Academy of Fine Arts, at the faculty of painting. Since then the couple had to struggle alone/together during the hard period after the collapse of the Soviet Union and civil war. It was also the time when they started a family and thus had to take their independent steps in the life.

But shared interests and priorities in life are what really help:

“It is the biggest happiness that we work in one and the same field. We can always help each other to overcome any difficulty; the main thing is that we are together. I can’t even imagine how we could live in a different way,” Mrs. Maia says.

So after finishing university the couple got actively involved in artistic life. Since then they have been cooperating with many art dealers and exhibition halls, in Georgia and outside the country, in the USA, Europe and Russia.

They paint continually, but the hardest question is what they paint,

“It is very hard to define the direction, as probably no artist ever thinks about what they paint, what they want to show. Artwork comes from inside and displays your mood, attitudes, emotions...

“Some time before I mostly created figurative compositions, now my works are abstract, but I didn’t really think much about it, as creation comes itself,” Mamuka Didebashvili says.

Maia still keeps her husband’s old style and makes beautiful figures, her works strive mostly for esthetic beauty, which she considers to be more womanly.

“Analytical art is a little bit far from me at the moment, maybe someday I could get free from the details as Mamuka did it, and do something different,” she mentioned.

But for both of them art is the main point and the source for transferring emotions; color, form, and every line is a tool for the artist to express him/herself. As Mamuka said “I can do a work in monotone one day, but sometimes something inside demands major, colorful painting, probably everything depends on mood.”

It sounds so interesting, that for the couple each others works are often a source of information.

“Abstraction especially is a demonstration of bare emotions, sometimes when I look at the paintings of Mamuka, I’m amazed of the power they give, and I think of what was going on inside the man that stands next to me right now, which he managed to put it into the work,” Maia added.

And naturally, the couple are each other’s best critics, always taking each other’s opinion into consideration and appreciating each other’s viewpoints, and sometimes getting unconsciously influenced by each other as well. The influence of painting continues through the generations as their 15-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy are really obsessed with painting, even though the parents never give them instructions about what to do and the final decision is up to them.

What they can really learn from their parents is that any sphere – and art especially – should be positive, giving positive emotions to everyone. For the couple, scandals and negative work made just for popularity is a threatening tendency in modern art.

Maybe some critics can even criticize Mamuka Didebashvili and Maia Ramishvili for their conservative style, or lack of innovation, but the couple would rather keep their art pure, without extra negatives. Giving out only positive emotions and beauty.

As for now, some of the couple’s work is being exhibited at “Art Gallery Line”, at 7 Bamis Rigi St., so if you’re planning a visit to Old Tbilisi be sure not to miss this pretty world of color, ornament, and kind emotions.