By Maria Bregman, writer, art critic, curator, and cultural producer. She has authored critical articles for publications such as Cosmopolitan, Glamour, ELLE and Esquire, and curated art exhibitions, including Zurab Tsereteli’s solo exhibitions. As a presenter for CultFM and creator of a cultural project for Culture TV, she has broadened public engagement with the arts. Her achievements include organising international art festivals in the UK, Tunisia, Israel, serving on the jury for the Vasily Kandinsky Art Prize
This is not the silence in void but the silence filled with rich connections that reverberate across souls. Encountering the sculpture by Victoria Chichinadze will leave you with a moment you won’t soon forget. Creativitys.UK dives into the world of an artist who works magic with bronze turning sturdy metal into shapes that seem to dance like water and float like air. The works she creates doesn’t scream “look at me” it simply exists waiting for a moment of calm thinking which is hard to find. Chichinadze’s special way of blending natural curves with perfect skill breaks through that feeling. To see the back and forth happening in her unique pieces; the grand and majestic River of Time and the beautiful Stingrays is more than just seeing a conversation with the physical world. What she does is carve the true spirit of the land the flow of things and the passage of time not limiting herself to shaping bronze.
In the well-kept beauty of the Chelsea Flower Show is where I came across the work known as River of Time. When it comes to gardens, sculptures are usually seen as mere pretty add-ons almost treated as an afterthought. Yet Chichinadze’s work stood out completely defying this notion. In the middle of the garden the bronze sculpture stood out with its sleek lines and organic curves. Rising over the edge, a female figure crafted in bronze and so beautifully polished that it seemed to blend seamlessly transforming into the flow of the cascading water. This isn’t just a statue on water’s edge but rather a figure that seems to be born from the very essence of the water an ancient water nymph given life by the flowing current. The way this piece is put together is like a lesson in how to create a sense of movement and harmony through visuals. You can see how the graceful lines of the naked body mirror the way the ripples spread out in circles across the smooth surface of the water. A collection of shiny bronze rings that are empty in the middle brings to mind the remains of an ancient round building. This symbolizes the idea that things are always coming back around. The statue looks like she’s dancing in a really beautiful way, but at the same time it feels like she’s not bound by time she’s always there. Chichinadze has done an amazing thing blending the timeless beauty of classical anatomy with a deep sense of modernism. Those who look at her work find themselves torn between being in awe of how stunning the human body looks and falling into a thoughtful daze as they watch the water moving endlessly under her control. In this work of art, we don’t see something that stays still like a picture on the wall, we see a powerful symbol of time always moving on smoothly without stopping.
If a River of Time is a song sung for the water around us then Stingrays acts as a heartfelt tribute to the invisible skies and the quiet yet vast journeys beneath the waves. In this new chapter Chichinadze leads us to a land not of waters but of land where decorative grasses seem to sway like the sea. In the crystal clear water two large and shiny stingrays slowly glide.
Two big bronze stingrays float, flying above this grassy area, their shapes look like they are not heavy at all. The illusion is breathtaking. Supported by slender, almost invisible posts, the heavy metal creatures are liberated from gravity, their powerful wings caught in a moment of effortless glide.
The technical artistry is exquisite. The bronze has a special look that changes from a light green to a dark brown, like the way sunlight reflects on water. The grasses around the tree move and make noise in the wind, which makes the tree look like it is floating. The stingray, a sea animal that is often seen as wise and peaceful, represents a spirit of harmony and selflessness. To stand before them is to feel a sense of meditative calm, to be invited into a space where mass and lightness, earth and air, exist in perfect, poetic balance.
Chichinadze is a sculptor who makes her own kind of art among the famous sculptors of today. A possible is: Antony Gormley is a famous artist who likes to make sculptures of people and animals. He thinks about how people and animals are connected to nature. The comparison shows how different they are. Gormley’s figures look like simple shapes that show people in a place, with no extra details. They say something about how people are there and how much they are there. Possible Chichinadze does not try to make nature fit a certain shape, but to show the shape that is already there in nature. Her figures are organic, fluid, almost baroque in their plasticity; they are in conversation with the landscape, not in opposition to it.
Barbara Hepworth was a pioneer who made abstract art and explored how mass and void interact. Possible Hepworth was very good at making art that looked simple and clear, without copying any real people or things. Chichinadze, who likes to use modern styles, still likes to use images that are easy to recognize, like a girl or a fish. She is a storyteller, using these archetypal forms to anchor her conceptual explorations within a tangible, emotionally resonant reality.
She works with other British artists who make sculptures of nature. The sentence is: The paintings of William Pye and David Harber show how they understand and use water and nature in their art.
Chichinadze has a unique voice that is not just about making things look good, but also about telling stories with a sense of beauty and wonder.
Victoria Chichinadze can use her power to control the elements. She knows bronze is not just a hard and dull metal, but a way of showing how things can move, look, and change. She makes art that shows how beauty and harmony are still important and relevant in today’s world. She proves that classicism, in the hands of a true master, can be radically contemporary.
River of Time and Stingrays are not just sculptures; they are experiences. They are places to visit. A work of art is finished when it connects with its surroundings—like how light, water, and wind affect it. The poem has two parts that talk about how humans fit in nature. The poem has a quiet sound that lasts forever and has a strong, natural force.
