The fifth edition of Tbilisi Mural Fest, Georgia’s largest street art festival, concluded in November 2023 with a diverse and colorful display of murals across the capital city and the nearby town of Kutaisi, two of Georgia’s largest cities.
The festival, which started this year in August 2023, featured a wide array of talented local and international artists who brought to Tbilisi and Kutaisi their distinctive styles and themes. Some of the highlights included Thiago Mazza’s vibrant botanical motifs, Sasha Korban’s realistic portrait of a Georgian grandmother making dough, and Milu Correch’s touching depiction of a mother holding her children, just to mention a few.
This year’s festival counts with an incredible lineup of artists, such as TelmoMiel (Netherlands), Slim Safont & Wedo Goas (Spain), Gera (Greece), Tina Chertova and Giorgi Pablo Kalandarishvili (Georgia), Vesod (Italy), Thiago Mazza (Brazil) and Sasha Korban (Ukraine) who created stunning works reflecting on Georgia’s culture, history and identity.
In addition to this, this year, the festival introduced an exhilarating new addition: 3D video
mapping, featuring the work of Berlin-based artist Stefan Ihmig (Studio ReSorb).
According to the organizers, the main aim of the festival is to promote community engagement, cultural dialogue, and artistic exchange, as well as to beautify the urban landscape and create a lasting legacy for the city. This is probably why the Tbilisi Mural Fest has, since it was founded in 2019, become one of the most anticipated events in the region’s cultural calendar.
As expressed by Besik Maziashvili, founder and visionary behind this remarkable event:
“Tbilisi Mural Fest has always been about taking Georgia’s mural art to a new level and highlighting Georgia as a wonderful platform for mural artists from around the world. Our festival has not only fostered creativity but also amplified Tbilisi’s presence on the global stage, establishing our city as a vibrant hub for street art and creativity.”
Since its inception, Tbilisi Mural Fest has been responsible for over 60 large-scale murals that adorn the urban landscape of Georgia, transforming the cities into open-air galleries just as they did again this year.
Here are some of the murals painted:
The first one is this lovely mural By Sasha Korban featuring the image of an older woman baking and titled ‘’სიყვარულით” which translates to “with love” in Georgian. As expressed by the artist “In Georgia, this mural is referred to as “ბებოს” meaning “grandma”. However, this mural represents the very essence of love. The love that saturates our everyday lives, manifesting through the small acts of kindness from our loved ones or even their mere presence. Unfortunately, we often take this love for granted, assuming it to be the natural order of things, and we sometimes overlook the beauty of life’s simpler moments.”
Another interesting mural is Slim Safont‘s and Wedo Goas‘ mural titled “Changing the light bulb”. The huge 45 m high mural painted during the course of 11 days.
“The mural represents the change of stage of a society, the transition from a darker past to a brighter future with the new generations as protagonists and taking control. Support and teamwork to reach change. Changing the bulb is a metaphor of replacing, modifying, evolving into something better and brighter.
Georgia is a fighting country with a past marked by many armed conflicts. Self-defense or self-protection and the capacity to maintain and preserve their own identity and tradition over the years are qualities worth taking into account when understanding the history and present of this territory.”
Milu Correch‘s mural shows the tender image of a mother embracing her two kids and has been titled “Maternity” for which the artist added the following note: “They cry because they do not see their golden blood and sword destiny. I sacrifice my history to become the regicide of tomorrow because I regret building a world that today I free from tyrants to sink in the condemnation of the misunderstood seer.”
Vesod’s magnifique mural was titled “Am1ran1” or Amirani (or Amiran) (Georgian: ამირანი), the name of a culture hero of a Georgian epic who resembles the Classical Prometheus.
In Georgian mythology, Amirani is a hero, the son of the goddess Dali and a mortal hunter. According to the Svan version, the hunter’s wife learned about her husband’s affair with Dali and killed her by cutting her hair while she was asleep. At Dali’s death, the hunter extracted from her womb a boy whom he called Amirani. The child had marks of his semi-divine origins with symbols of the Sun and the Moon on his shoulder-blades and a golden tooth.
Georgian myths describe the rise of the titan Amirani, who fights devils (ogres), challenges the gods, kidnaps Kamar (the daughter of gods), and teaches metallurgy to humans. In punishment, the gods (in some versions, Jesus Christ) chain Amirani to a cliff (or an iron pole) in the Caucasus Mountains, where the titan continues to defy the gods and struggles to break the chains, an eagle ravages his liver every day, but it heals at night. Amirani’s loyal dog, meantime, licks the chain to thin it out, but every year, on Thursday or in some versions the day before Christmas, the gods send smiths to repair it. In some versions, every seven years the cave where Amirani is chained can be seen in the Caucasus (Source).
Talented local artist Giorgi Pablo Kalandarishvili’s mural is a photorealistic representation of what the area has to offer. “Tita”, as the mural was titled, shows the image of hands showing a handful of recently plowed grapes.
Fun fact: Georgia is home to more than 500 varieties of indigenous grapes—roughly one-sixth of the world’s total grape varieties, so why not to show some of their most marvelous productions?
From grapes to plants and flowers, exquisitely rendered by Brazilian artist Thiago Mazza. Mazza’s mural brings freshness and calm with its bright colours and serene composotion.
I particularly liked this another lovely mural by Sasha Korban featuring the image of what appears to be a young person of school age with a cheeky look.
Telmo Miel‘s ‘Carry On’ (გააგრძელე) mural depicts that image of a young with several sett of arms and clothes, walking towards to a light source symbolizing a bright future, while he carries his cultural roots with him.
And at last, but not least two murals of the Georgian artist Tina Chertova who painted the following two murals as part of the so-called Kutias series. Chertova uses the murals to tell stories of the cities where the murals are painted using Georgian traditional ornaments.
Follow theTbilisi Mural Fest on:
Instagram: @TbilisiMuralFest
Facebook: Tbilisi Mural Fest
Author: Fran
Founder and editor of Urbanite. Street Art lover who after the finishing her MA thesis on the Mexican and Norwegian muralist movement in the 1920-50s, developed a fascination for street art and graffiti that eventually led to collaborations with different art blogs, including the creation of this one.
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