Manassas sculptor's work finds place next to Warhol, Dali - The Best from Greece

Posted on: 24/May/2011 His sculpture, “Birth of Adam,” now in an exhibit at the University of California, Dominguez Hills, is precisely about hope.

Tkabladze said if he could accom­plish one thing with his art it would be to share some sense of optimism for everyone.

“With all this craziness going on, you kind of want to see, or predict, or at least dream that something new is going to be born,” said the 40-year-old Tkabladze, who lives in Manassas with his wife, Tea Okropiridze, an artist in her own right who works in tapestries.

Okropiridze said she’s proud that her husband’s Birth of Adam is appearing in the exhibition called “On Being Human — Love, Faith, Shame and Hope.”

Tkabladze’s work was chosen from hundreds of submissions from around the world and wound up appearing in the exhibit with works by 90 artists, in­cluding pieces by Dali, Warhol, Rockwell, Tissot, Whistler and Rembrandt.

“It was kind of amazing for him to be part of that show,” Okropiridze said.

Tkabladze, who is from the nation of Georgia, said art should be for everyone and believes that more art is better He calls art “good medicine.”

“I don’t think it’s only artists that enjoy going to museums,” said Tkabladze, who has been in the United States for about 10 years.

“If people were involved in art a little bit more than they are right now, there could be more peace,” he said. “It just relaxes you and makes you see things differently. It just changes you.”

Though he prefers working in stone, Tkabladze doesn’t restrict himself to a single medium.
One day he might be working in clay, and the next he might use PVC pipe in a modern depiction of a Greek column to serve as a pedestal for a classic bust in plaster.

He said his eclectic approach to art makes him hard to categorize, but he likes the challenge even though some question his ability to get his message across.

“I don’t like to stay in one place. I guess that’s why agents don’t want to work with me,” he said. “They always tell me, ‘You’ve got so many different things going on. The people think you did not find what you are looking for yet.’” To support his art habit, Tkabladze builds furniture at his studio in an office park in Herndon.

Okropiridze, also from Georgia, helps customers decide what a piece of custom furniture might look like in their home.

Sometimes, people don’t know what they want, so Okropiridze uses her computer graphics skills to help them design the furniture that Tkabladze eventually will build.

As with his art, Tkabladze might clash the modern and classical together with good results.
Tkabladze’s chairs might be reminiscent of the Shaker style, but a few unexpected curves help throw them into the contemporary category. He might fashion a side table cut from the length of tree trunk, leaving the shape of the tree discernable with mortises and tenons showing where the legs of contrasting woods join the table top.

“It’s still art. We do very original, unique pieces,” the 37-year-old Okropiridze said.
Tkabladze said he started making the furniture to let his art “live.”

“I appreciate furniture. It lets me stay with 3-D and it’s functional,” he said.

“It works perfectly for me right now,” he said of balancing his woodworking with sculpting.

Making money from the furniture frees Tkabladze to make the art he wants to create.

“Money is not a starting point for me to make any composition,” he said. “When I’m working, I’m not thinking ‘Is it going to sell or not?’ I don’t want to make money from this and get frozen in one place because it’s going to sell.”

“I would rather challenge myself by looking every day for something new,” he said.

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