Made in Georgia: The Exhibition of Olga and Alexander Florensky

Georgian National Gallery with the support of LICHT Gallery hosts the exhibition of Olga and Alexandre Florensky husband-and-wife artist team, titled Made in Georgia.

Georgia, being one of the central focuses of the artists’ couple is represented in a series of urban and country landscapes, portraits of Georgian artists – their close friends, and the series of the Georgian alphabet, all of which are depicted in a naïve folk art style, be it Lubok, or the signboards of the old Tbilisi taverns.  

The ancestors of Alexander Florensky came from Georgia. Grandfather, Andrei Florensky, and his brother, philosopher Pavel Florensky, were born in Tbilisi. The great-grandfather, civil engineer Alexander Florensky, was also born in Tbilisi too and supervised the construction of roads and bridges with the Batumi-Akhaltsikhe road being the first project carried out by him.

Alexander Florensky – painter, graphic artist, and ceramicist, was born in 1960 in Leningrad, in a family of artists. In 1982 he graduated from the Ceramics Department of the Vera Mukhina Higher Art and Industrial School in Leningrad. He was one of the founders of the Union of Artists Митьки (Mit’ki, 1985), and a member of the graphic section of the St. Petersburg Artists’ Union (1988). From 1997-2005 he acted as a curator of the gallery Митьки – ВХУТЕМАС and worked as head of the Department of contemporary art at the State Museum (Tsarskoe Selo Collection. Russia). The painter is an avid collector of works of Georgian and Russian contemporary artists. Together with his wife Olga Florenskaya, he has implemented a number of art and publishing projects. Exhibitions of the artist’s works have been hosted by numerous private galleries and state museums at different times. These include the Totibadze Gallery at the VINZAVOD Art Center (Moscow, Russia), the Russian State Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia),  Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, Russia), and the
Hermitage (St. Petersburg, Russia). The works of Alexander Florensky are kept in the collections of the Russian Museum, Hermitage,  Tretyakov Gallery, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow Center for Contemporary Art, and the Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Art.

Olga Florenskaya -Painter, graphic artist, ceramicist, and sculptor, was born in 1960 in Leningrad, in a family of artists. In 1982 she graduated from the ceramics department of the Vera Mukhina Higher Art and Technical School. Together with his spouse Alexander Florensky, she organized a group of artists called Митьки (Mit’ki, 1985). She has been a member of the St. Petersburg Artists’ Union since 1988. Together with Alexander Florensky, she has carried out a number of large-scale creative projects. Among them are the animated films: The Story of the Greatest of the Miracles and The Trophy Films. She has been awarded a number of awards at international film festivals in Russia.

Olga Florenskaya primarily made a name for herself with collages made of paper and fabric. Her solo exhibitions have been hosted by both private galleries and state museums. Among them are the Museum of the Academy of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg, Russia), Gallerie Vallois Sculpture (Paris, France), OAT Gallery (Tbilisi), Totibadze Gallery (Moscow, Russia). Her works are kept in the collections of the Russian Museum, Hermitage, Tretyakov Gallery, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow Center for Contemporary Art, VICTORIA & ALBERT Museum in London, and the Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Art. The artist lives and works in St. Petersburg as well as in Tbilisi.