From fantastical creatures and haunting installations to tattooed sculptures, a new generation of artists in Georgia is pushing the boundaries of ceramic art. Exploring the work of five artists based in Tbilisi and beyond, this article reveals how an ancient material is being reinvented to tell contemporary stories of memory, identity and belonging.

Georgia has a long history of pottery and ceramic craftsmanship, shaped by the diversity of its local clay deposits, regional traditions and techniques. This heritage, together with the availability of materials and ceramic studios, provides fertile ground for contemporary artistic experimentation. Today, both Georgian artists and those who have settled in the country are turning to clay, transforming a traditional craft material into a medium for exploring memory, identity, time and human experience. Yet despite working with the same material, their artistic languages remain remarkably different.

Georgia-born, US-based multidisciplinary artist Uta Bekaia (b. 1974) creates otherworldly sculptures, often combining ceramics with video, performance and textiles. Through his practice, Bekaia constructs a mythology of his own, exploring time, collective memory and perception. Often glazed in vibrant colours and embellished with intricate ornamentation, his sculptures tell individual stories while contributing to a larger narrative. Rather than creating standalone objects, Bekaia brings his sculptures into a performative world populated by characters and stories.

‘Magical Journey of the Peacock’ is not simply a series of sculptures, but a narrative told through colourful ceramic figures. The story begins with an egg “possessing an innate sense of beauty encased within the confines of his shell” and follows the bird’s birth, first visual experiences and eventual transformation into a half-human creature. Confronted with duality and questions of identity, the peacock ultimately becomes the monarch of beauty, discovering his destiny and finding harmony. Each stage of the story is represented through sculpture, yet the works do more than merely illustrate the narrative: they become its primary means of storytelling.
Another ceramic project, ‘The Forest with Eyes’, is striking in both its scale (180 × 120 cm) and intricate detail. Its profusion of figures and colours creates a world of its own, resembling a vivid hallucination of natural forms and eyes that stare back at the viewer. Although Bekaia’s ceramic works do not necessarily reference one another, they share a distinctive visual language and narrative quality, becoming characters within the artist’s richly imaginative world.

Another prominent figure in Georgian sculpture is Lia Bagrationi (b. 1957), co-founder of the Georgian Ceramic Art and Craft Foundation ‘The Clay Office’, based in Tbilisi. She approaches clay as a vessel for memory, exploring philosophical and metaphysical questions of time, space and human existence. In contrast to Bekaia’s vibrant imagery, Bagrationi favours a more restrained visual language, frequently working with unfired and uncoloured clay.

In ‘Babylon’, the artist combines unfired clay bricks and running water to create a tangible, ever-changing interpretation of the biblical narrative. As the tower gradually collapses, a white canvas behind the installation captures its shadow, emphasising the passage of time and the work’s transience. Here, the artist allows clay itself to become the storyteller, rather than merely the material through which a story is told.

‘Line of Seven, One Missing’ combines clay and textiles: six oversized dresses made from natural fabric, stiffened with clay, stand on haystacks. Their haunting presence is heightened by the installation’s setting in an underground tunnel. Who are these women? Why is one missing? What are they queuing for? The artist leaves these questions unanswered. However, the hashtag ‘migration’, accompanying photographs of the work on her social media, suggests a possible interpretation centred on displacement, forced migration and the experience of leaving everything behind. The scale and title of the work lend it a monumental quality, inviting reflection on its associations with memory and commemoration.

Irina Jibuti (b. 1985) also works with unfired clay, combining artistic experimentation with research. Her exhibition ‘From Earth to Fire, From Earth to Earth’, held this autumn at TBC Concept Gallery, examined different types of Georgian clay as artistic materials, natural resources and carriers of local history and memory.

The ground floor was devoted to artistic experimentation, presenting three groups of works. One consisted of numerous small rectangular clay samples bearing traces of different techniques, ranging from gentle, flowing finger marks to sharp cuts made with a clay-cutting wire. Each sample became an individual work in its own right, rather than simply another example of the material.

Like Bagrationi, Jibuti explores the interaction between clay and water. Her work ‘River’ brings together different states of the material: raw clay, a fired ceramic gutter and clay moistened by nearby water, ready to be worked. Here, time takes on another dimension, connecting the material’s present state with the possibilities of its future transformation.

The second floor presented a collection of clays found across Georgia, alongside examples of different processing techniques. In contrast to the contemporary art gallery setting downstairs, this display borrowed the visual language of a natural history museum, positioning clay as an object of scientific and historical inquiry.

Yet it is not only Georgian artists who are turning to clay in Tbilisi. Russian émigré artist Ekaterina Shcherbakova (b. 1995) uses the material to express feelings that precede language. Her sculptures were recently exhibited alongside paintings by Vlad Kulkov (b. 1986) at his Tbilisi studio, creating a dialogue between the two artists and their respective mediums.

Scherbakova presented eight sculptures across three rooms. Both large and small works feature elements reminiscent of living organisms: human faces and noses, bone-like structures, mushrooms and animal forms emerge from flowing, repetitive patterns layered upon one another. These organic details are so deeply embedded in the sculptures’ surfaces that they are difficult to distinguish at first glance, appearing to merge with the works themselves. They gradually reveal themselves to patient viewers willing to explore the sculptures from different angles.

One work is particularly striking: a large hollow sculpture containing a device that plays enchanting music, adding another dimension to the visitor's experience and creating a dreamlike atmosphere throughout the studio. Shcherbakova's practice echoes Bekaia's not through specific visual similarities but through world-building. Rather than presenting eight separate objects, she creates an immersive environment reminiscent of enchanted forests and scary fairy tales.

Katya Tutookatu (Kritseva) (b. 1986) is a Tbilisi-based artist who combines clay with an unconventional medium: tattooing. She covers ceramic forms with silicone before tattooing their surfaces, creating textural and visual effects distinct from traditional ceramic decoration. The artist developed this technique herself, naming it ‘tattoography’.

Her installation ‘7 Women’ consists of ceramic figures covered in silicone and tattoos, representing different generations of women and bringing together layers of time and memory. Each sculpture is accompanied by a guardian – a translucent presence symbolising support and protection. At first glance, the guardians dominate the installation. Yet it is the sculptures that carry the narrative through their abstract, minimalist representations of human figures and tattoos depicting flowers that the artist associates with the women portrayed. The skin-like silicone lends the sculptures a more corporeal, human presence.

The project ‘A Right to a Voice’ also combines sculpture and sound, recalling Shcherbakova’s work while exploring non-verbal expression through human voices rather than instrumental music. Ceramic sculptures become vessels for voices, songs and other sounds. The project examines the moment when a person allows themselves to be heard – to speak, protest, laugh, express anger, sing and claim space through their voice. Here, the sculptures seem to call out to the viewer, becoming bodies that assert their presence visually through tattoos, physically through clay and vocally through the voices they carry.

The work has its origins in a childhood memory: during an argument, the artist’s older brother told her, ‘When you get a passport, you will have the right to a voice.’ Through her sculptures, Tutookatu reclaims that right.

Both projects will be presented at ‘Layers’, Tutookatu’s solo exhibition at tmp_gallery in Tbilisi, taking place on 13–15 and 17 November. The exhibition explores layering as a central element of her practice, bringing together different materials, memories and emotional experiences.

Georgia seems to draw contemporary artists towards clay, with its rich materiality, plasticity and history. Yet each artist featured here has developed a distinct artistic language – from Bekaia’s colourful figures and intricate forms, Bagrationi’s melancholic installations and Jibuti’s research-based approach to Scherbakova’s enchanting sculptural environments and Tutookatu’s unexpected yet delicate use of tattooing. Across these practices, clay becomes more than a traditional sculptural material: it can preserve traces, transform over time, evoke living forms and carry memories. Its versatility allows artists to translate a multitude of stories and experiences into tangible, three-dimensional forms.