Gvantsa Agrba, an Abkhazian artist born in February 12 2001, From Sokhumi, Abkhazia, Lives in Tbilisi, Georgia. In 2023, she graduated from the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, the faculty of fine arts.
The Abkhaz are an ancient Northwest Caucasian ethnic group known for strong family ties, traditional lifestyles, and longevity, with large diaspora communities in Turkey. Their language, also known as Abkhaz, is distinct yet closely related to Abaza, and they are recognized for their unique culture and history, which is deeply rooted in the Caucasus Mountains.
- ERISTAVI GALLERY artist’s exhibition, Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, 2023
- ATINATI award exhibition, Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, 2023
- Exhibition FUTURUM |||, ADAMIA GALLERY, Dresden, Germany, 2022
- Dresden International Festival Palais Sommer, Dresden, Germany, 2022
- Artisterium 2022 exhibition, “The hall is dead, The hall is alive”, Tbilisi Ethnographic museum, 2022
- Group exhibition FIRST STOP, MAUDI art gallery, 2022
- Tbilisi State Academy of Arts students’ exhibition, temporary exhibition hall of the Academy Museum, 2021
- A member of the MARGO KORABLEVA’S performance theater troupe, within which she performed
- at festivals: Oda Fest, Oxygen Biennale, 2021.
- Since July 2024, she has been in residence at the Tolon Museum of Modern Art. Kuntuu, Kyrgyzstan
- Residency and exhibition in the Lithuanian town of Troškūnai.
- Personal exhibition “A Field of Sweet Nettles” at Museum of Literature, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2024
- Group exhibition “Still they paint” 2025
- Group exhibition “What the body remembers” 2025
Gvantsa Agrba works primarily in painting, using oil on canvas to explore the unstable thresholds between sleep, dreaming, and altered mental states. Her practice investigates the liminal zones where physical reality dissolves, and the mind constructs interior landscapes shaped by emotion, memory, and the subconscious.
At the core of Agrba’s work lies sleep — not as passive rest, but as a dynamic state of consciousness that momentarily displaces waking life. In this space, nature, the body, and silence converge through minimalist motifs such as blades of grass, buzzing sounds, and fragments of text. These elements function as symbolic triggers, guiding the viewer through scenes suffused with ambiguity and internal tension. Her visual language is dominated by emotional logic and symbolic imagery whose meanings remain intentionally elusive.
Agrba constructs psychological environments that blur the boundaries between reality and illusion, drawing on vivid color palettes, surreal juxtapositions, and moments of subtle sarcasm. Beneath the apparent calmness of her compositions lie deeper currents of fear, violence, sexuality, and pain — themes expressed not only through figuration but also through the presence of objects like bells, electric poles, and other sound-bearing forms. Identity, the unconscious, and hidden energies permeate her work, where even imperceptible elements like dust in the air acquire metaphorical significance. Agrba’s paintings are not resolved narratives, but rather open fields of interpretation — spaces in which viewers are invited to confront their own internal landscapes.
