Shalamberidze Roland

Contemporary Russian conceptual artist and master of performance.

Born in 1958 in Kutaisi, GSSR. He received a musical and artistic education and formed as an informal artist. In 1985 his first solo exhibition was held at Kakabadze Gallery in Kutaisi. He studied for some time at Tbilisi Academy of Arts. In 1987, he moved to St. Petersburg and settled on Pushkinskaya 10.

In the 1990s, he worked in the style of abstract expressionism, practiced gestural painting, combining it with collage and dripping. His creative method can be defined as both dynamic meditation and self-sacrifice in art.

In the 1990s, he lived for several years in Germany and later in New York. Shalamberidze worked extensively, influenced by diverse artistic ideas, forming his own amalgam in the works of the 2000s. He held personal exhibitions in St. Petersburg, Tampere, Copenhagen, and New York. In 2000, the artist finally returned to St. Petersburg.

He constantly mixes techniques and materials — painting, photography, collage, assemblage — believing that “permanence is death for the artist.” His works are serious, emotional, and compositionally precise, balancing expression and design. The result is what he calls a mix of media, more than simply painting.