ABOUT
Bio
Lizi Budagashvili (B.2000) is an artist born and raised in Tbilisi, Georgia. She is currently based in NYC pursuing her MFA at the New York Academy of Art. She received her BFA from Ringling College of Art and Design. Her work reflects the life experiences of having to spend years away from her motherland.
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Her figurative paintings and prints are based on childhood experiences and explore dissociation from home while reproducing a nostalgic feeling evoked by distant memories.​​​​​
My work delves into themes of childhood, memories, and nostalgia, capturing the longing for the most carefree, innocent, and irreproducible period of our lives. The ephemeral nature of childhood shapes my painting and printmaking techniques, enabling me to create ethereal and dreamlike atmospheres that reflect memories after multiple layers of removal.
By abstracting childhood recollections, I seek to recreate the past and evoke feelings of safety and joy, inviting viewers to traverse dreamscapes, blurring the line between distant memories and reality.
Drawing parallels between sentiments associated with home, idealised past, and childhood, my works portray a longing fostered by leaving home at the age of 17. The exploration of having multiple 'homes' while struggling to belong takes shape through double exposure imagery, blending home and abroad, past and present, and dream and everyday life.
The double-sided nature of nostalgia - a very comforting while evoking an eerie and haunting feeling also fuels my interest in the subject. I wonder whether this profound nostalgia is rooted in a tangible place or an imagined homeland built of memory stains and glimpses. And how can one feel homesick for a phantom home - a place they have never been to?
