The intriguing personality of Zura Kalanda (1953) forms the basis for his richly varied oeuvre as an artist. His wide interests manifested themselves in studying music, the visual arts and literature, which provided him with the possibility of bridging the creative gap between various disciplines in a light-hearted manner.
At a young age Kalanda was already involved in a variety of art forms. At the age of 10 he made his first oil paintings. He wrote his first poems, when he was just 14. Two years later he played his first public piece of music. “All artistic activities, when I was young, were created spontaneously. I enjoyed them immensely, but to write poems at a literary level and to create quality art, you need to take the courses, a process of years of studying”, as the master says now.
The frame of reference of the artist born in Georgia was formed by the fanciful and fantastic Caucasus mountains, where in the course of history an agglomeration of diverse cultures gathered. But the recognizable psychological, philosophical, mythological and mystical characteristic structure of his work is nurtured by a much wider range of influences, than just his heritage. His international contacts, travels and exhibitions in various countries have broadened his depth and permanently stimulated his motivation in seeking out modes of expression. His art works in recent years and especially his oils are very distinctive, where composition and use of color are concerned and are of an exclusive, high technical quality.
Zura Kalanda’s paintings vary from the monochrome to the explosive use of all the colours in the spectrum and, just like his graphic work, they exhibit a stylization in form language, which can also be found in the specific Georgian script. In this way, he builds a conscious voyage of discovery into his paintings for the beholder, with as its strategy that they should, by means of a maze of associations, distil their own perception and meaning. The scraperboard technique, used for his graphic work provides the possibility through the clear line usage combined with the camera-obscura effect to evoke a confrontationally expressive character.
While Zura’s deepest thought processes in his poetry may be found in passages such as “with my wand of ink I touch the vulnerable paper carefully” (in his poem ‘Preparation’); in his graphic work (such as ‘Pilgrims’), through a fluttering play of lines, he draws the beholder into deeper embedded layers of meaning, behind what on first glance appears to be an easily interpretable depiction.
In some of his poems, aspects of Kalanda’s breadth of experience, of his creative process, may be recognized (‘My room’, ‘In front of the mirror’, ‘Too long’, ‘In the night I open the sky-blue window’ etc.). This range of thought may also be found in some of his oils (‘Looking back’, ‘Presentation of Art’, ‘Identity’ and ‘Nostalgic landscape’). Various parallels may also be drawn between the poems and the graphic work. This also provides possibilities to better fathom his artistic work.
In the often utilized themes – in both his paintings, graphic works and poems – such as love, harmony, patriotism, nature and music, abundant use is made of folk mythology and fairy-tales combined with an inspired interpretation of these. In this way he apparently gives access to his art and substantiates his aim to create stereotypical emblems to reveal his deepest-most thought processes to us.
It seems as if Zura Kalanda is distancing himself from the current global tendency in modern art of individualism and wishes to appeal more, instead, to Werner Haftmann’s opinion in “Malerei im Zwanstigsten Jahrhundert”, that modern art is fantastic and includes all of humanity.
This artist, whose present base of operations is the Netherlands, applies his interest in the human psyche to the purpose of his ideal mission to gather strength for universal freedom and justice (‘Tears’, ‘August 2008, Sceveningen’, ‘I wonder’, ‘To the poet’, ‘Hunger’, ‘Hope in future’, ‘Helping hand’, etc.). Apart from his great craftsmanship, it gives Zura Kalanda the extra dimension of ethical animation and completes his unique personality as a citizen of the world.