Merab Gagiladze, 1972 | Fantasy / Surrealist painter

Georgian artist Merab Gagiladze was born in Tbilisi.
In 1987 he began his formal art education at the Tbilisi College of Art, School of Ceramics.

In 1990 he continued his studies at the prestigious Tbilisi State Academy of Fine Arts and graduated in 1996 with a degree in Graphic Art.

Nathalie Vogel, 1980 | The liquid women

Most of the work from Vogel exhibited here pertains to undines: "liquid women", bewitching and tragic.

Several paintings deal more specifically with a quintessential theme of romantic symbolism, the drowning Ophelia.

Vogel's postmodern reexamination of the opheliac disappearance introduces subtle and complex nuances in the representation of feminity: Ophelia doesn't drown, she withdraws from us.

This feminity with an attitude is very different from the symbolist's victimized staging of feminity.

Andrew Ferez / Андрей Ферез | Surrealist / Fantasy painter

Russian** illustrator Andrew Ferez - Андрей Ферез - aka 25kartinok, creates surreal** scenes, each with their own fantastical narratives, that seamlessly merge various opposing elements. Digitally drawing his elaborate renderings, Ferez's work has a dark, fantasy-driven appeal.

Artemisia Gentileschi | The Penitent Mary Magdalene, 1616

Mary Magdalen was a much-loved subject both by painters and the public because she represented the ideal model of the search of virtue and the renunciation of worldly pleasures.

Artemisia Gentileschi wished to recount the story of this difficult path in her portrayal of a young woman with wild hair wrapped in a magnificent yellow silk gown holding a mirror, the symbol of vanity and inscribed with the words Optimam partem elegit (“you have chosen the best part”, namely virtue) away from her.

The beam of intense light illuminates the figure from the right, a demonstration of the technique Artemisia would have learned by studying Caravaggio's works in Rome, and conveys the sense of drama that envelopes the subject.

Artemisia Gentileschi | The Penitent Mary Magdalene, 1616 (detail) | Pitti Palace

Renata Brzozowska, 1977 | Abstract painter

Born in the city of Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland, Renata Brzozowska** paints and draws since childhood. She graduated the University of Art in Poznań.

After years of living in France and working for one of the local gallery, she returned to the country, fully devoting herself to easel painting.

The subject of her paintings is constant for many years, it is woman, femininity and dance - her great love and passion.