Family

The work was inspired by a photograph from 1985, in which the artist can be seen seated, together with his parents, on a bench in one of the parks in Tbilisi. The exaggerated gestures of the protagonists are striking in the sculpture, in comparison with the photograph. The hand of the father almost pierces the son’s heart, with the mother desperately clutching his leg. Rather than merely a portrait, the work is an attempt to transpose to the sculpture the emotional bonds between the members of the family, recorded in the photograph. The composition draws on the monumentalism of social realist art. The artist has achieved this effect through employing a roughly worked, rugged, compact mass, as well as through the exaggeratedly large hands of the figures and their serious, intent faces.