The Poet in the Forest, 2026

Ilia Menabde  

Ilia Menabde is a Georgian painter born in 2003 who lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia. His practice explores the relationship between memory, time, place, and contemporary experience. He graduated from the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 2026 and currently works from a temporary studio in Tbilisi. Working primarily with oil on canvas, Menabde approaches painting as an evolving process of experimentation. His practice draws upon diverse historical periods, visual references, and the environments that surround him, which he reinterprets through a personal and contemporary language. Rather than adhering to a single stylistic approach, he continuously explores new techniques, compositions, textures, and ways of constructing the painted image. Menabde’s work reflects the perspective of a young artist navigating the tension between inherited artistic traditions and the rapidly changing visual culture of the present. His paintings combine observation, imagination, and experimentation, creating spaces in which different temporal and emotional references can coexist. He has participated in several group exhibitions in Tbilisi, and his works are held in private collections.