Anton Totibadze’s laconic still-lives and landscapes are visually stunning, with multiple layers of paint as well as associations, allusions, humour and narrative.
His objects are incredibly alive – they are characters in their own stories, and at the same time – cues of what just happened or is about to happen – celebrations, failed dates, memories, mysteries, dramas and comedy of everyday life. Based on the artist’s own experiences, his work is most certainly a direct and rather precise as well as his style of depiction – documentation of the everyday life of the contemporary world at every given moment, with its mysteries and wonders, sentiment and mischief.
Totibadze comes from a family of painters in several generations, thus throughout his development as an artist, he has been closely exposed to multiple genres and styles in painting, which informed his own distinct quirky and acutely contemporary style, that has quickly earned him recognition.
His style has evolved from simple still lifes to detailed, appetizing depictions of feasts, paired with heavy, self-made wooden frames and materials that glow in darkness and ultraviolet light. Totibadze's work delivers an intoxicating visual feast, stirring feelings of nostalgia and longing for real craftsmanship in our postmodern world.
His work is included in the collection of the Russian State Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Museum of Organic Culture (Kolomna, Russia), and private collections worldwide.