State of the Art: Georgii Uvs

Reader’s Digest: How would you describe your art?

Georgii Uvs: My art and artistic act are a kind of philosophical experience. Since no one has yet been able to describe it in words, these answers are above human language.

Through a richer palette, using visual art, my work reveals the secrets of being and existence.

Since this experience is unique and unrepeatable, no artist's work is repeated and there are no copies. It is impossible even for myself as artist to recreate an artwork.

RD: Who are your main influences?

GU: Before now is one influence. Yesterday is another, and today is the third one, but Gerhard Richter has always been for the last 10 years.

Georgii Uvs, Mesozoic #4, 2016, oil on canvas

RD: You previously graduated with a degree in Geology. How have the sciences and natural history influenced your work in the past?

GU: Transcendent reality is fundamentally inaccessible to experiential knowledge as it goes beyond the limits of sensual experience.

Having received a degree in Geology, I studied the structure of the Earth, its origin and development, yet I did not find the answers I was seeking in this subject.

I then decided to devote my life to metaphysics—the questions and answers that have plagued all humanity since the beginning of Antiquity—and only then was I able to formulate through the language of fine art, through abstraction.

RD: You’ve collaborated with international curator Ellen Nash on several exhibitions. What role does her curation play in drawing out your studies of philosophy and existence?

GU: Ellen Nash is my connector and translator to the audience. Similar to me, Ellen lived and worked in different parts of world and she understands, she feels my art world.

She is international and multicultural which fits well, as my works are not concerned with the boundaries of politics, culture or a specific time.

A distinctive feature of our collaboration is the endless search and study of existence and the connection between history, philosophy and art.

RD: Why is philosophy, and especially the study of intuition, so central to your work?

GU: As in Intuitionism—a movement in philosophy—I also recognise intuition as the most reliable means of cognition.

Courtesy Mirko Boffelli and Producer 360. Georgii Uvs, Abstract Intuitionism

RD: What led you to develop your “live” painting technique, where you pour paints and pigments onto canvas on the floor?

GU: I feel that paints and colours know better than us what to do. I just lead and help them to tell the new story. I obey the colours, existing only to serve them and enhance their strength.

RD: Why did you choose to focus on the Mesozoic era as a representation of optimism?

GU: “Mesozoic” is an ideal time, it is a dream. It was era when water and the environment were very pure. It is the dream of humanity now, something that we had before.

I also believe that if you fail but are still alive, you can start from the beginning and change the situation. Ellen Nash has created the concept of this new start.

The Mesozoic is an era of tectonic, climatic and evolutionary activity. At this time, the formation of the main contours of modern continents and mountain building on the periphery of the oceans take place.

By the end of the Mesozoic era, the main part of the diversity of life approached its modern state. We just need to imagine that we are in that era and we have chance to start over, knowing all the mistakes from the previous time.

Curator of Mesozoic. Let’s start over! and regular curator with Georgii Uvs, Ellen Nash

RD: What do you hope that people take away from your work in this exhibition?

GU: As we saw and heard from the visitors at the opening of the exhibition in Venice, they have a hope.

I hope that beautiful and colourful projects with really good concepts from curator Ellen Nash will inspire people to believe and start changing the world with very small acts for a better place to live.

Mesozoic. Let’s start over! is part of Personal Structures, a biennual exhibition hosted by the European Cultural Centre in Venice, Italy. It is open at the Palazzo Bembo until 22 November 2022.

Read more: State of the Art: Gianfranco Meggiato

Read more: The science of art

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