London is hosting the first-ever auction devoted exclusively to Georgian art—an important milestone for a country with a deep but often overlooked cultural legacy. Featuring works by around thirty contemporary Georgian artists, all handpicked by Bonhams’ curatorial team, the sale marks Georgia’s confident entry onto the international art scene.
One of the standout works at Georgian Art Now is Keti Davlianidze’s striking canvas Kolchetian Amazon (2023), presented by Vere Gallery. Davlianidze, born in 1976, is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice includes painting, sculpture, photography, and book illustration. Her work is known for its soft pastel hues and refined line work, which together create a visual language that is both delicate and emotionally powerful. Critics have praised her ability to portray nuance and strength across various media. Her pieces are held in major collections, including the Vatican and the Georgian National Museum.
In the Kolchetian Amazon, Davlianidze blends myth and modernity. The central figure—possibly a woman, possibly a mythic warrior—moves through a dreamlike natural landscape, suspended in the vastness of time and space. The work captures a moment of self-discovery, drifting between tradition and independence, nature and power, the ancient and the contemporary.
It is both personal and political: a meditation on identity, transformation, and the quiet power of inner endurance.
Colchis—the ancient kingdom that once occupied what is now western Georgia—is best known beyond the region as the mythic land of Medea and the Golden Fleece. But beyond legend, Colchis was a thriving cultural centre as early as the second millennium BCE. Today, it remains a potent symbol in Georgian cultural memory: a convergence of myth and history, past and present.
Davlianidze draws from that legacy, reimagining mythological archetypes in a contemporary context. Her warrior-heroine is less a figure of conquest than one of contemplation and quiet strength—rendered in a palette that suggests both vulnerability and power.
That same tension—the pull between past and future, memory and modern identity—runs through the auction itself. Coinciding with Georgia’s Independence Day on May 26, the event is more than a commercial milestone. It is a cultural statement: a claim for presence and recognition in the global art world.
Georgian Art Now, which marks the first historic sale of Georgian works at a major international auction house, is open for bidding. The sale closes on May 29. For details please visit: https://www.bonhams.com/auction/31458/georgian-art-now/
