Tamar Sulakvelidze is a painter born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1989, whose preferred medium is oil and whose subjects come from myth: Icarus, the Magi, Eve. Two of her original works are currently available at Art of NOMA: Magi, a 2024 oil on fabric, and Eve on her way to share a destructive thought with Adam, a 2025 mixed-media painting on canvas.
Who Is Tamar Sulakvelidze, the Painter From Tbilisi?
Tamar Sulakvelidze was born in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, in 1989. The gallery's biography on her Tamar Sulakvelidze artist page describes her as an artist deeply committed to the practice of painting, and it names oil on canvas as her preferred medium: the material through which, in the biography's words, she connects with and expresses her inner self.
Her exhibition history, as the gallery records it, is short and clear. She has taken part in exhibitions in Georgia and, most recently, had a solo exhibition in Paris, France. For an emerging painter, that sequence matters. Group shows at home build a practice; a solo show abroad is usually the first moment a body of work is asked to stand on its own in front of an audience that has no prior context for it.
The biography also tells us when painting began for her: in childhood, as a form of self-expression. That detail is worth keeping in mind when you look at the work. These are paintings by someone for whom the brush came before any profession, and her path since then, as the next section shows, has also run through several other disciplines.
A Path Through Textile, Architecture and Film
According to the gallery, Tamar Sulakvelidze has explored a range of mediums over the course of her artistic journey: textile painting, 3D design, architecture and, most recently, production design in film. It is an unusual list for a painter, and each item on it says something about how an image can be built.
Textile painting is about pigment and cloth, and how one absorbs the other. Architecture and 3D design are about structure and space, how a form holds together and how a person moves through it. Production design in film is about building a world that has to be believed at a glance, where a room, a costume or a color tells the audience what kind of story they are in before a word is spoken.
The gallery does not claim that any one of these disciplines shaped a particular painting, and a careful viewer should not force the connection. Still, it is hard not to notice that two of her paintings at Art of NOMA are worked in oil on fabric rather than conventional canvas, or that her subjects are staged like single frames from a larger story. Read the biography as context for the work, not as a key to it.
What Does Painting "in the Register of Myth" Mean?
The gallery describes Tamar Sulakvelidze as a painter who works in the register of myth. Her oils, it says, pair symbolic and often classical subjects with a contemporary psychological charge, holding ambition and fragility in the same image. There is intuition in her surfaces, and a quiet authority in the way she lets meaning rise slowly to the top.
In practice, painting in the register of myth means choosing subjects that the viewer already half knows. Most people recognize the names Icarus, the Magi and Eve before they see a single brushstroke. That shared memory gives the painter a head start: the story is already in the room, so the painting does not need to explain it. What the painting can do instead is decide which moment of the story to hold, and what emotional state to put inside it.
That is where the contemporary charge comes in. A myth told for centuries can become a costume drama. Her approach, as the gallery frames it, is the opposite: the classical subject is the frame, and the content is psychological. Ambition, exposure, foresight and doubt are feelings any viewer can recognize in their own life, and myth gives them a shape. For a broader view of how painters today are returning to the figure, see our essay on the new generation of figurative painting.
Magi and the Quiet Work of Foresight
Magi is one of the two works the gallery names when it describes her practice. According to its listing, the title reaches for the Magi not as characters but as figures of knowledge and foresight, a state of awareness rather than a scene. The painting does not stage a journey or a nativity; it holds the idea of seeing what is coming.
The work is oil on fabric, painted in 2024, and measures 50 by 60 centimeters (19.69 by 23.62 inches). The gallery notes that the cloth absorbs pigment and introduces a soft irregularity, so the gesture stays alive without hardening. That is a physical fact about the surface, and it is easy to underestimate on a screen: fabric does not hold paint the way a primed canvas does, and the result is a softer, more breathing field of color.
The listing also returns to the phrase from her biography, the quiet authority of her practice, with meaning rising slowly rather than announcing itself. Magi is a unique original, mounted on a professional wooden frame, ready to hang, and comes with a certificate of authenticity. At its size it suits a study, a reading corner or a wall seen up close, where its slow surface has time to work.
How Do Icarus and Eve Capture the Moment Before?
The second work the gallery singles out is Icarus, a large 2024 oil on fabric measuring 150 by 120 centimeters. Its listing says she does not illustrate the fall; she distills its emotional core, ambition, exposure and consequence, into a single image where aspiration and fragility are held together. Icarus is not currently available on the site, but it remains the clearest statement of what her mythic register is trying to do.
Eve on her way to share a destructive thought with Adam pushes that idea further, and its title does much of the narrative work. The gallery describes it as the moment before a decision, with ambition and fragility caught in the same figure. The painting does not show the consequence. It shows someone walking toward it.
The medium changes here too. Eve is mixed media on canvas, combining oil, acrylic and pastel, made in 2025 at 70 by 60 centimeters (27.56 by 23.62 inches). The gallery points out that the combination lets her move between the fluid and the dry in a single surface, with pastel catching where oil pools, so Eve's forward motion reads as much in the handling as in the pose. Like Magi, it is unique, mounted on a professional wooden frame and sold with a certificate of authenticity.
Why Oil on Fabric Changes the Surface
Two of the three works discussed here are painted in oil on fabric, and the gallery's descriptions keep returning to what that does. In Icarus, pigment settles unevenly into the cloth, giving the surface a delicate, charged quality that resists slickness. In Magi, the cloth softens the edges of the gesture. In both, the material is part of the meaning.
A primed canvas is designed to sit between paint and fiber, giving the painter an even, predictable ground. Fabric with less preparation behaves differently: it drinks some of the paint, lets the weave show through thin passages and makes every stroke slightly less controllable. For a painter whose biography includes textile painting, choosing that surface reads as deliberate rather than accidental.
For collectors, this is a reason to look closely and, where possible, ask for detail photographs. The differences between oil on fabric and oil on canvas are subtle in a single image and obvious in person. Our guide on how to read an artist's body of work before you buy covers the questions worth asking about materials and surfaces.
What Should Collectors Weigh Before Choosing?
Start with the two available works as a pair. Magi is the quieter, more contemplative painting, about awareness and foresight. Eve is the more dramatic one, about momentum toward a choice. They share a vocabulary, classical subject and psychological charge, but they would change a room in different ways, and many collectors will know immediately which one speaks to them.
Then consider size and placement. Magi, at 50 by 60 centimeters, and Eve, at 70 by 60 centimeters, are both moderate formats that work in living rooms, studies and bedrooms without needing a gallery-scale wall. Both arrive mounted on a professional wooden frame, and the light they are hung in will matter, because both surfaces depend on texture. Our guide to framing, lighting and hanging original art is a good place to plan that.
Prices are published on each work's page. To see Tamar Sulakvelidze alongside other painters, browse the gallery's original paintings or the full list of artists at Art of NOMA.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Tamar Sulakvelidze?
Tamar Sulakvelidze is a painter born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1989. Her preferred medium is oil, and she paints symbolic, often classical subjects such as Icarus, the Magi and Eve with a contemporary psychological charge.
Where has Tamar Sulakvelidze exhibited?
She has participated in exhibitions in Georgia and, most recently, had a solo exhibition in Paris, France.
What materials does Tamar Sulakvelidze use?
Her preferred medium is oil. The works discussed at Art of NOMA include oil on fabric and mixed media on canvas combining oil, acrylic and pastel. She has also worked in textile painting, 3D design, architecture and production design in film.
Which Tamar Sulakvelidze works are available at Art of NOMA?
As of September 26, 2026, two original works are available: Magi, an oil on fabric from 2024, and Eve on her way to share a destructive thought with Adam, a mixed-media painting on canvas from 2025.