Faces: eyes wide open, eyes closed in meditation

The exhibition “Faces” by Austrian artist, Georg Wachberg, opened at Europe House, Freedom Square, in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday evening. It has a brief showing until 30 April, 2014.

The solo exhibition displays 38 artworks; some are screen ink on paper, but many are oil on used cardboard, which the artist collected from his environment. Consequently, although some are “untitled” others are named after a numeral or phrase on the cardboard or other material, such as “589” - “item no. 83033” - and “ingrid nairz kollectionen” (from the entrance ticket to an art gallery) – all oil on used cardboard.

Many have their eyes closed. Wachberg says “the faces have their eyes closed because they pray and meditate. It is this moment when all the anxieties, sadness as well as the greed and ambition move and make room for something that seems more profound to me: inner peace” (from Europe House’s Facebook page).

With eyes closed, the images do seem, as the artist says, in contemplation, and at peace. But the images with their eyes wide open depict a more melancholic aura, or a sense of bewilderment and confusion. Each face, while seemingly of the same ilk, is expressively unique: some haunting, some whimsical, some peaceful, and some tragic. The colours reflect their moods too – beige, blue-grey, white, black, and a touch of red – of red nose, flushed cheeks, or blood-shot eyes. Age is almost indeterminate – yet there are no children’s faces; these are the faces of people who have a story to tell: of love and loss, of sadness, possibly madness, and certainly of memories.

My favourites were the serene “white face” (oil on used canvas), “one old woman” (oil on used canvass), “woman and sky” (oil on used canvas) with her shock of red hair, an untitled piece of a man with his eyes closed, and “A Portrait of an Unknown Human” (a combination of screen ink and oil). All are fascinating, especially if the face is compartmentalized – looking at each discrete feature – in an effort to determine whether they are part of one person or several people, as the artist says: “I used to paint real people, but now they are the offspring of my imagination, or better to say their features derive from the many people I see every day. A young woman would lend me the shape of a nostril, an old man might give me the shadow underneath his eyes, a third a structure of wrinkles on the forehead.” And I like the wrinkles on the forehead.

www.wachberg.at

www.europehousegeorgia.org

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).