Sometimes I feel that threads are telling me what to paint...



Rusudan Kevanishvili (or Dusuna, the name from her childhood and how she signs her works) is a painter by profession. A graduate of the Nikoladze Art College by in Tbilisi, she has always been fond of painting, especially portrait painting, until severe asthma forced her to abandon oil painting. After years of treatment, she returned to her motherland - a village in the central part of Georgia where she was born and raised. There, in the beautiful valley of Racha, guarded by a circle of mountains, Rusudan continued her struggle for survival. For, without painting, her life seemed meaningless... She wrote poetry and taught art to kids, but that never satisfied her inner hunger.

"I wasn't really living - I just functioned mechanically," - she recalls - "while in my dreams I always imagined I painted". That lasted over 20 years until 7 years ago she spotted a heap of thread clews, which looked to her like paints. Why not give it a try? Using glue and knitting threads she created her first work - "A geisha", thus inventing new technique. While gluing threads on the wooden board for the first time in her life, Rusudan felt enormous excitement: "I said to myself - if this works out, I will live a full life again!" And it did.

Since then Rusudan, who is now 57, works tirelessly and is constantly developing new ideas - both for the themes and technique, wanting to stay up-to-date with contemporary art. Today her only complaint is lack of time: after years of forced silence, Rusudan has so much to give to the world. She wishes the days were endless. Her fingers are like brushes, - she describes. The threads are like paint, and her memory conjures up countless images. "And sometimes I feel that the threads are telling me what to paint..."