‘The exhibition is a like an archive of fears, each of the works was born out of it. Much of my life is spent meditating on fear and working on defeating it. In old days, the Kharachogelis wore silver belts worth as much as their burial would – as if they wore the fear of death with them at all times’- writes Qeu in her statement.
In the presented exhibition, the artist employs elements of theatricality and creates a sort of 'Gesamtkunstwerk' to take the viewer on a journey through the museum of her fears. Qeu uses a wide range of references to convey these feelings, be it ancient architecture and artefacts, mythology or poetry.
Qeu Meparishvili's creative process is characterised by constant experimentation in search for new materials and forms. To create the works that muse on topics of emotional fragility and loneliness, the artist used materials and techniques such as: ceramics, pine, wax, chrome, tufting. However, she does not lose humour, inherent to her creative process, when talking about surprisingly honest and painful topics and in this way, she avoids cliched dramatisation.
The exhibition title is taken from the poem ‘Ole’, 1931, by Giorgi Leonidze. A masterpiece of Georgian symbolist poetry, ‘roasted from within with the poison of loneliness’ the tree, Ole, a symbol of a strong-willed man weakened by solitude, is a kind of mantra for the artist, and as she herself sums it up, ‘the exhibition is a meditation on fear and living with it’.
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