Maka Dadiani

Princess Maya (Maka) Dadiani belongs to the royal dynasty of Mingrelia in Georgia. Her great grandfather, Alexandre (Kviti) and great grandmother Nino (Ninutsa) were both Dadiani. She is a direct descendent in the eighth generation of the King Otia, who was ruling Mingrelia in the years 1728-1757. She is also a direct descendent in the sixth generation of the King Manuchar (1792) and Niko The Great (1834, statesman, military-commander-in-chief, governor of Mingrelia, ambassador and historian).

Maka's parents, recognizing her talent as musician, decided to give Maka a musical education as pianist. Yet she had to practice visual arts in addition to music, as she was strongly attracted to drawing and painting since her early youth, whereas she was creating excellent copies of works of great masters such as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raffael, Rubens, etc. After attending music school, she studied at the Music Academy of Tbilisi and graduated as concert master.

Her passion for painting pushes her at the age of 23 to give up her career as a musician and to study Fine Arts at the State Institute of A. Pushkin in Tbilisi, a renowned art school of Georgia. Her first solo show is held in 1983 at the Institute. Maka's talent being widely recognized, she receives in the years 1984-1989 the Scholarship for the Exemplary Students at the Tbilisi State Institute of A. Pushkin, where she graduates with Distinction. In 1985, she takes part in the All-Soviet-Union Students' Contest of Fine Arts in Moscow. The quality of her work earns her the First Prize. Maka Dadiani's five exhibited works are ever since permanently kept at the Foundation of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia.

A year before her Graduation, in 1988 Maka starts working as an Associate Professor at the Tbilisi State Institute of A. Pushkin, at the Department of Fine Arts. In 1989, she starts working as a Resident Artist at the House of the Arts of Tbilisi, staffed with the ten greatest Georgian artists of that time. Maka Dadiani paints among artists such as Shalva Matuashvili, Merab Abramishvili, Nodar Badurashvili, Jemal Kukhalashvili, Tamaz Kakabadze, Levan Margiani, etc. House of the Arts was directed by the famous Georgian artist Prof. Temo Gotsadze.

Unfortunately, during the Georgian Civil War in 1991, the House of the Arts burns completely down and many of her paintings are destroyed. Nevertheless, she continues to paint and takes part in the following years in several exhibitions. Maka moves in 2004 to Zurich, where she works and lives until today.

Until 2006, Maka painted essentially with oil. Permanently looking for new ways of expression, she developed a special technique in order to obtain three-dimensional effects and relief forms. Her work, whether figurative or abstract, is based on profound academic knowledge and is characterized by immense expressivity and unfathomable sensitivity, as well as stylistic versatility and dynamism. Maka's virtuosity as an outstanding portraitist and painter are broadly recognized. She created – among many other prominent personalities – a portrait of His Royal Highness King Juan Carlos I de Borbón of Spain. The Portrait has been kept since 2011 in the Collection of the Palacio de La Zarzuela in Madrid.

It is important to emphasize that Maka's abstract paintings always depict a precise subject and are a result of a certain purpose, which she defines in the forefront. Maka's abstractions intensely reflect her vivid emotions, feelings and character. Princess Maka's superb way of visual storytelling is one of a kind.

Maka Dadiani frequently exhibits her works at private as well as public solo and collective exhibitions. Maka is a member of various artist unions such as Georgian Artist Association, Georgian Artists' Guild, German Artists' Union “Syrlin", Swiss Artists' Union “Artischock" as well as member of Ugo Guidi Museum in Tuscany, Italy.

Princess Maka is author of an innovative, ground-breaking approach in fine arts, called “Moving Fine Arts". This seminal approach conceptualizes the creation of paintings with moving elements, which are incorporated into the painting with the help of an appliance. A part or two of a painting's object moves based on an electric mechanism and imparts the painting a uniquely dynamic atmosphere, combined with an unprecedented coherence. Due to Maka's brilliant, gigantic artistic talent, moving elements merge with the static part of the painting in the most harmonious manner and the picture reflects liveliness and integrity at each angle of its moving part in the process of the motion.

In 2019, with her “Moving Fine Arts" Maka Dadiani won the First Prize of The International Art's Exhibition of the City of Lerici, Liguria, Italy.