Levan Kherkheulidze
Sense Sea Spirit
2017-2018
In November or 2011, during my visit to Baku, a friend, who is also a photographer, suggested we go to the coast of Caspian Sea a few dozen kilometers away. I agreed, we got into the car and about 45 minutes later we found ourselves on an abandoned shore: cloudy sky, soft light, empty huts destroyed by strong winds, cold, tires half buried in the sand, few abandoned cars and raging grey waves.
I started photographing non stop, I finished couple of hours later, only when my fingers were too frozen to hold a camera. In that moment I did not realize, that I had just started working on my own self-portrait
I visited Baku, several times, during different seasons, and every time I went back to the shore in winter I photographed cold, abandoned landscapes and even during warm periods, on a beach full of people, I was able to capture people lost in their thoughts… I suddenly realized what I was really photographing - it was my own loneliness, but it wasn’t tragic or miserable- but universal , integral loneliness, I think so innate for every human being.
SPIRITS
2000-2020
SPIRITS is the series of portraits by Levan Kherkheulidze that he is working on since 2000. Visual artists, writers, actors and actresses, photographers, dancers and choreographers, friends and friends of the friends – for 2 decades already Levan Kherkheulidze portrays Georgia’s intellectual and artistic scene. “I like to observe people, to capture the moment, when his/her nature becomes obvious; or more exactly, the features which give them uniqueness in this world… I believe that each work expresses its author's inner world. That's why every photo is a certain kind of self-portrait and a depiction of how a photographer looks for himself/herself in others.
"The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself".
Edward Steichen
