Artists

Elené Shatberashvili

Press release

"One bird eats the fruit, the other one looks at it." — Simone Weil
(excerpt from Parler de Dieu, dialogue with Simone Weil by Byung-Chul Han)

The visible and the invisible. The threshold between worlds and realities, times and spaces multiplying and becoming complex. While entangled in the mess of life, watching the Matrix over and over, reading Simone Weil, painting for the painting and painting for the show, travelling back and forth between countries, cities, wilderness, times and relationships.

I have been trying to catch the threads that would guide. And while the thieves of attention steal from us to nourish their own systems, I try to reclaim it through intense attention throughout the painting process.

What does one actually create when one paints? Does the real world exist? What lies behind the illusions, behind the dreams, behind the attention traps? The question is how to penetrate.

I often ask myself: what good is painting?

It calls for contemplation. It shares an intimate human experience. It stirs emotions and offers a mirror where one can project, invest the gaze, and travel. Is that why I insist on repeating the same subject matter, trying to see and depict one thing, many times, so as to draw out its core meaning?

But then it becomes an image. It enters the flood. It dissolves into the endless stream of digital pictures, produces desire for possession, and thus feeds fashion and consumption. The thing made to resist the Matrix ends up joining it.

I wonder if it is possible to have an experience of the real. Or if we are always, already, inside.

There is a moment where Neo sees it for the first time, that perception is not reality, that what we see is not what is.

Elene Shatberashvili (b.1990, Tbilisi, Georgia) lives and works in Paris, France.

Her recent solo exhibitions include Quatre, La Vèrriere, Fondation Hermès, Brussels (2026); Crimson, Villa Atrata, Anglin sur Angle; Oblique, Frank Elbaz, Paris (2025); Paintings and Drawings, Villa Atrata, curated by Gil Presti, Paris (2024); GB Agency, Paris (2023); Breeze 3: Elene Shatberashvili and Ouissila Arras, GB Agency, Paris (2021).

Her work has been shown at Centre Pompidou-Metz, France (2025); Musee d'Art Moderne, Paris; Galerie Jousse Entreprise, Paris; Galerie Frank Elbaz & LC Queisser (collaborative), Paris; Atlas & Gallery Artbeat (collaborative), Paris (2024); Gallery Artbeat, Tbilisi; MO.CO. Montpellier; Galerie Perrotin, Paris (2023); Fondation Ricard, Paris; Centre d'art contemporain, Perpignan; GB Agency, Paris; Jousse Entreprise, Paris (2022); Eigen & Art, Leipzig; Tajan The Gallery, Paris (2021); Eigen & Art, Leipzig; Tajan The Gallery, Paris; TRAP TRAP, Bogotá (2020); ENSBA, Paris; IESA, Paris (2019); Onzième Lieu, Paris (2018);