Mirian Shvelidze – painter, set designer and interior decorator, who in collaboration with the eminent stage director, Robert Sturua, created a new era in Georgian stage design.
In 1971 he graduated from the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts where he studied scenic design with Parnaoz Lapiashvili. Starting from 1975, he began to work as an art director of the Rustaveli Theatre with which his main scenographic works are associated, though at different times he also collaborated with the Griboyedov and Liberty theaters. He designed the iconic theatrical performances by Robert Sturua: Kvarkvare Tutaberi by Polikarpe Kakabadze, Shakespeare’s Richard III, King Lear, Hamlet, Julius Caesar and Macbeth; The Trouble of Darispan by David Kldiashvili, Is He a Human, This Man? by Ilia Chavchavadze, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett and Irakli Samsonadze’s The Sweet, Sad Smell of Vanilla.
Mirian Shvelidze was a production designer of Temur Chkheidze’s well-known TV show Indwellers of Jaqo.
Old Tbilisi motives, where the city is represented as a theatrical and fairy tale environment, abstractions and collages make up the main themes of Mirian Shvelidze’s painting.
Mirian Shvelidze also worked fruitfully in the field of interior design: he created decoration for the Palace of Wedding (nowadays the ownership of the Badri Patarkatsishvili family) and restaurants Marco Polo, Phaeton and Golden Mug. With the wall collages representing the main focus of the interior he has underlined the theatrical property of the interior decoration.
