Violin and Cello, an oil painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

It seems like there has been a violent end to this event and there won't be any more music to be heard from this violin and cello. Perhaps there was some sort of a scene; a white high-heeled shoe sits at the front of the painting. The neck of both instruments have been broken. Closer inspection of this blowup of the painting reveals at its center the Ace of Spades, a known "death card". Perhaps there may have been a murder.

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Sunset, an oil painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

The sun hangs forelornly in the sky, shaped like a bean, looking almost like an amoeba. Two nudes stand in the foreground with the wind blowing strongly in their hair. The left thigh of one of them is covered with a patterned stocking.

Please feel free to post any comments about this painting below.

Sunflower in Front of a House, an oil painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

Expecting a bright sunny sunflower, were you? Welcome to Vakhtang Kakulia's art! Perhaps it is growing up in the Eastern Block, but his paintings always have a twist and often a touch of darkness. The sunflower in front of the house is blackened, and the sky is dark, filled perhaps with the smoke of industrial smokestacks. The brightest thing is the door to the house, perhaps indicating the appeal of taking refuge inside.

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Strange Girl, an oil painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

The strange girl in Vakhtang Kakulia's painting has a face that appears split down the center. Closer inspection reveals it is also covered with scars and metal plates. Her eye sockets are empty and her neck is long.

Sounds of the Saxophone - An Oil Painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

With hair blowing back, a young woman is vigorously playing the sax. The background composed of daubs of paint create a late "1950s modern" feel. A bandage-like stocking pulled tight with herringbone cord strikes the eye.

We would be happy to hear your comments about Sounds of the Saxophone. Please post your comments below.

Smoker, an oil painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

With this painting we continue with the theme of vice seen in this collection of oil paintings by Vakhtang Kakulia. Previously we saw the temptation of alcohol and then what can be the unfortunate outcome of drinking too much. Now we are introduced to the smoker, an apparently glamorous woman, composed of angular planes, somewhat reminiscent of the cubist art of Picasso. Wispy lines in the background additionally bring to mind the work of Joan Miro.

We invite you to comment below on this painting of a Woman Smoking by Vakhtang Kakulia.

She by the Angel Bottle of Bourbon

She by the Angel and a Bottle of Bourbon depicts the same woman that we saw earlier in Vahktang Kakulia's painting Drunk Girl on the Toilet. I presume this painting is a little earlier in the evening as the woman fights the temptation of alcohol with the aid of an angel. Her left hand, which would be the one closest to the bottle of bourbon, is stretched out across her body to the right where an angel dressed as a man stands. I surmise that the battle between the demon drink and the angel was won by the bottle of bourbon judging by the wreck the woman becomes in the Drunk Girl on the Toilet painting.

Post your comments and observations on this painting below.

Scream, an oil painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

A ghostly-white dominatrix is the subject of Vakhtang Kakulia's "Scream". Dressed in red high-heeled boots and frilled garter, Madam's hair appears like two antennae. Here mouth, framed with red lips, is wide open in a scream. It appears that perhaps two needles are stuck into her right shoulder, and a pad with two antennae is stuck on her left thigh just above her knee.

This painting challenges Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream" for as a representation of angst.

Please post your comments about Vakhtang Kakulia's painting "Scream".

Painting of an old Gregorian Church by Vakhtang Kakulia

Here's a radical change of subject matter for our artist from Tbilisi, here we see an oil painting of an old Gregorian church. Quite a change from fish, boats, frazzled muscicians and drunk women. The church is ramshakle, of course; Kakulia doesn't paint objects realistically, but rather as compositions of pieces of the whole taken apart and reassembled rather haphazardly.

Odd Fish - An Oil Painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

Odd, very odd indeed. This odd-bod of a fish looks like he's been pulled apart and reassembled as a patchwork quilt from odds-and-end found on the ocean floor. Rags and sticks appear to make up his scales. Another of Vakhtang Kakulia's oil paintings with a sea theme.

My Boat - an Oil Painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

The subject matter of Vakhtang Kakulia's paintings are typically of mundane objects of daily life. They are presented in compositions that suggest deep symbolic meaning, and are typically painted in a style in which flat planes are broken down into patchwork pieces that give the impression of cubist construction.

This is one of four paintings in this collection that features a boat either as the main subject or as a background object. This painting is notable, however, for the fact that it uses pastel colors in the background, which is something that is not typical of the artist who typically uses earth tones.

Musician - Oil Painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

The young man from Tbilisi strikes again! Now we have a body that has the body of a violin where the head should be, and another almost skeleton-like man dressed in a harelquin suit with a trumpet that floats in the air behind him. Complete the picture with a white flag, bed, and chair in the background and you are left wondering what is going on here. Oh to get inside the head of Vakhtang Kakulia!

Moonlit Boat - an Oil Painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

Vakhtang Kakulia approached by out of the blue about posting his artowork on ArikiArt so I don't know him at all other than what he provided me in his bio. (Read Vakhtang Kakulia's biography) So as I post his works and study them to I'm finding it very intriguing and frustrating to understand what is behind his symbolism, what are his life experiences that inspire his artwork, etc. So my comments are all drawn from my own interpretation and may be far from the mark since I am flying blind. I wonder what Sister Wendy would come up with? Anyhow, in this painting which Kakulia entitles "Moonlit Boat" you get quite a surprise to find that the boat in question actually appears to be under a spotlight on a stage! The boat looks a little "tempest-tossed" with the sail blown out from the mast. You wonder where the people are: the boat is empty and there's an empty chair sitting beside the boat too. Towards the back on the right side there is what I first thought was a street lamp, which is an image I've noticed in a few of his paintings, but after working on his "Liberation" painting last night, I'm wondering if perhaps it's the guitarist's microphone that is part of the entanglement in that painting.

What are your interpretations of the painting? Post your thoughts.

Here's a book published by the Getty Center called Symbols and Allegories in Art (Guide to Imagery Series) about interpreting images in art. It gets good reviews at Amazon.

I referred to Sister Wendy Beckett above. If you are not familiar with her, I thouroughly recommend her. This remarkable diminutive Carmelite nun with glasses and bucked teeth, was made famous by her series for British public TV in which she travelled widely to art museaums interpreting and reviewing the masterpieces of art. I think many people became fans of hers for how she handled herself calmly and without embarassment on TB when reviewing nudes and other racy material. She also did a series for U.S. public television (PBS) entitled Sister Wendy's American Collection.

Here are a few of her many books and DVDs available at Amazon.

Liberation, an oil painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

Having looked at this painting for a while I started to understand the symbolism of the work. If you look closely, you’ll see there is a single guitar string running from the woman’s back to the guitar. The guitar has been smashed, it seems, and the woman is finally making a break for it. It’s all guess-work on my part what all this symbolism might mean as I haven’t discussed any of the works with Kakulia. The guitar may be literal, and the woman is finally escaping whatever command over her playing the guitar might have had. But then while thinking of the previous work in this collection entitled “Guitarist”, you get the clear impression from that painting that the guitarist is a man even though we only see his outer garments. Perhaps then the guitar in this painting represents the guitarist from the prior painting, and the woman is actually fleeing from him? It is obviously a very symbolic painting, and it is certainly fun to conjecture at what the meaning of it is.

Do you have any ideas yourself after studying this painting? Post your ideas. And read and study how to interpret the meaning of paintings with
How to Read a Painting: Lessons from the Old Masters.

Painting of a Guitarist by Vakhtang Kakulia

Vakhtang Kakulia likes to deconstruct his subjects into their parts, and this goes not only for the actual physical properties of the subjects in his paintings, but also of the living essence of them too. Take for example this oil painting which he titles “Guitarist”. While the title suggests we will see a painting of a man or woman strumming a guitar, instead we find just the trappings of the guitarist: his guitar, of course, and then his outer clothing: an edge of his hat, his red jacket, his shoes – but no actual guitarist in sight. As always, the objects in the painting are broken apart and painted this way and that in a collage or patchwork effect. There are echoes of Picasso’s cubism in his paintings in a way; the planes are pulled apart and reassembled in a striking manner.

Please post your comments and observations of
Vakhtang Kakulia’s painting of a guitarist.

Painting of a Fish by Georgian painter Vakhtang Kakulia

That’s Georgia in Eurasia, not the state in the South of the United States. Artist Vakhtang Kakulia hails from Tbilisi, Georgia, which while being located on the banks of the Kura (Mtkvari) River is nonetheless pretty landlocked. In the collection of art that Kakulia provided me with for posting to ArikiArt several paintings feature the sea and fish. I wonder at this fascination for the sea. His style of painting is not to paint the subject in one plane of continuous color, but actually to compose the image in parts which give the impression of collage or patchwork. Please feel free to post you comments and impressions of this oil painting of a fish by Vakhtang Kakulia.

A House by the Sea - Painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

A House By the Sea, an oil painting by Vakhtang Kakulia

Do you see what I mean when I say that Vakhtang Kakulia's paintings give the impression of being collage? If you take a closer look at this painting of a house doesn't it look like each of the elements that make up the house are cutouts that are stuck to the canvas. Each of the different elements no doubt have some symbolic meaning for the artist, and the fact that there are a couple of playing cards in there make me feel sure that this is a "house of cards".

What do you think? Post a comment.

Drunk Girl on the Toilet

This painting of a Drunk Girl on the Toilet by Vakhtang Kakulia really cracks me up. What was not so long ago a slender young beauty has been reduced to basic humanity by the demon drink. Take a closer look at Vakhtang's painting of a drunk girl and come back and post your comments. We want to hear what you think.

Butterflies in the Forrest - an Oil Painting by V Kakulia

Here is the latest oil painting by artist Vakhtang Kakulia of Tbilisi, Georgia. It amazes me as I post Kakulia's works how much many of his paintings give the impression of collage. Obviously it takes a lot of expert technique to be able to paint shadows in a way that the objects in the painting appear to be three dimensional and pasted to the canvas. The butterflies in this oil painting give the impression of being crumpled newspaper.

Please post your comments on oil on canvas paiting Butterlies in the Forrest by Vakhtang Kakulia.