On March 20th, Personal Exhibition for the 80th anniversary of the Artist Omar Chkhaidze will be opened at Zurab Tsereteli Museum of Modern Art.

It was not done by me, it happened in me.
Saint Augustine (4th century)

I was lucky to be born in Georgia, in the mountains of ancient Colchis. I did not choose the place of my birth by chance - this place has a powerful informational-energetic field. It is well-known that The Mysteries of Colchis school (Steiner) functioned there, as well as a center for the secret study of esoterica and occultism.

I chose the way of an artist in my early childhood so that I could show the Light I had been given to see since birth. But throughout my way in art I have encountered a lack of understanding about what I mean by this Light. Let me explain: it does not refer to physical light but to a spiritual light (Lichtung - Heidegger). I see this Light, I live in this Light, and I paint this Light.

Throughout my life I have frequently had the experience of leaving my physical body. Sometimes, people close to me were the witnesses of this process (initiation), and they thought I had died. But in fact, when the soul leaves the body, it passes incredibly rapidly through a vibrating spiritual field and fuses with an eternal, endless, radiant entity and "there delights in integrity" (Morel). This is the highest bliss, a total concentration of primeval radiance and love, eternal life and existence, embracing the emptiness and vastness of the Universe. It is the delight of a soul dissolving in substance - the beginning of all things. This is not Maya, the veil of deception (the Vedas and Puranas). For the east, it is Brahma and Dao, the merging of Jiva and Ajiva (soul and matter), the total unity of Yin and Yang (darkness and light). For the west, it is Xenophanes' spherical being, Plato's good, Eckhart's and Tauler's becoming one, Spinoza's substance, Spenser's unknowable, and Emerson's over-soul.

When it returns to the body, the soul is pervaded by unconscious bliss and the desire for this peaceful state to continue forever. It is the unity of the microcosm and macrocosm (Ferriere), which is a complete synthesis of the celestial and earthly planes, and the unity of Plotinus' concept of the seeing and seen, and what Dionysius the Areopagite describes as the return from the mother's womb (extarversion) after absolute introversion. It is the harmony of soul and matter, and a truly conscious birth. And every such birth - an exit and entry - is a surge of Infinite love and belonging to it. All of this enables me to be a pure conduit and create paintings such as Ascension 1966, Touch 1967, On the Way 1969, Eternity 1971, Aura 1986, Heaven 1991, Initiation 2006, Introversion 2009, Energy of Light 2010, Transfor-
mation of Light 2012, Out into Light 2013, Luxosphere 2016, Tenebraesphere 2016, Universe 2017, Vibration of the Universe Light 2017, Substance 2020, Ether 2020, and others.

These works are the product of an initiation and the comprehension of various mythological­ religious, philosophical-esoteric studies, as well as of a triple movement: circular, spiral and straight (Indian, Alexandrian and Christian mysticism).