Nicholas V. Elbakidze


Interior Design

Product Design

International Sculpture Center's 2024

Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary

Sculpture Award Nominee.


M.F.A. in Sculpture under Rebecca Ripple,

elective in 3D under Scott Klinker,

Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI


B.F.A. with Honors in Interior Design,

Parsons, The New School, New York, NY

My practice is driven by the awkward edge between tradition ​and subversion. I am most interested in Interior Design as a ​container for cultural and personal identity. Cultural ​mythologies (Მითოლოგიები) and Interior Codes collide as ​a methodology for straddling the boundaries of Sculpture ​and Interior Design.


A bastardization of bourgeoisie domestic scaffolding; my ​displays create a series of episodes that perform as sites of ​transgression. Neither Western nor Eastern, these tableaus ​speculate object defamiliarization as Queer intervention.


More specifically, my practice engages with the Icon of Taste ​and how the formation of Design Symbols participates in the ​world-building of a Queer Taste. Within this document, a ​collection of several Icons of Taste undergo conceptual ​defamiliarization.

Experience

Work

  • Leyden Lewis Design Studio - NY
  • Altuzarra Fall/Winter 22, IMG Studios - NY
  • Diana Shpungin - NY
  • Susan Leopold, Elizabeth Harris Gallery - NY
  • Jane Grant Interior Design Lab - TN

Residency

  • Stove Works - TN

Solo Exhibition

  • Saarinen House, Cranbrook Center for Collections - MI
  • Tangerine Gallery - TN


Group Exhibition

  • RED DOT!, Stove Works - TN
  • In Touch, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art - South Korea
  • Break My Heart, Wavelength Space - TN
  • PROUD+, The Studio Door - CA
  • DIFFA - NY
  • SCE Thesis Exhibition, Parsons - NY
  • Parsons Gala, Parsons - NY

Honors

  • Tri-Star Arts, Contemporary Art in Tennessee - TN
  • Undergraduate Honors In Design, Parsons - NY
  • School of Constructed Environments Honors, Parsons - NY

DIFFA


Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS

New York, NY

An Interactive Interior for connection amongst uncertainty.


A location of public and private exposure. “Blossom” sets forth an exploration of the body in a time of ​urgency. The body can no longer be an absent void. We explore HIV/AIDS as a site of the body. In the ​age of HIV/AIDS, the body becomes an interception between sexuality and death; the edge condition ​of community and self.

STOVE WORKS RESIDENCY


Chattanooga, TN

I held a one-month residency at Stove Works in Chattanooga, ​TN, where I began experimenting with rubber forms. I ended up ​spending the month creating castings depicting a rubberized ​reproduction of a porcelain bird.


Here, the expectation of desire is flipped on its head. A once ​expensive form is now rendered in an inexpensive material, yet ​allowing it to interact with the body as an object of intimacy ​rather than pure decoration.


At the end of the residency, I worked with Cranbrook Painting ​alumni Kirby Miles to curate a solo exhibition of my work at her ​recently opened gallery in Chattanooga. Kirby gave me full ​control of her 10’ x 8.5’ x 12’ gallery space. I presented a solo ​exhibition in which these birds were displayed as a kind of birds ​of paradise, In a monochromatic red setting placed in vibrating ​bird baths.


Here, the Queer form becomes hidden within Good Taste.


*Everything within this interior has been drenched in red; red paint, red carpeting, red light, red window film.

Not asking for permission has always been an aspect of my practice. ​So much so that during my undergraduate studies at Parsons I ​occupied an entire hallway for one year as my own private studio ​without ever being questioned.


I started working on guerilla installations both on and around the ​Cranbrook campus. I rented a gasoline-powered generator from ​Home Depot and mounted the rubber birds on a fuck machine I ​purchased off Amazon a few days prior. I thought a lot about Central ​Park and Cranbrook with ideas about the fabricated landscape and ​Sex hidden within tasteful landscaping.


I sent my peers out in the dark between 10:00 PM and 3:00 AM to find ​the fucking bird in the dark. All they had to go by was following the ​sound of the fuck machine and generator to find the work. Here, the ​birds have returned back to the wild and become an independent ​sculptural form that denotes an idea rather than a physical internal ​bodily action. They function as markers for an activity, an Icon, a sign.


The Home Of Eliel & Loja ​Saarinen


Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, Bloomfield Hills, MI


I utilized Saarinen House as a container to further explore conversations ​surrounding Taste. I created a high-contrast situation within the home. It ​is important for me that Saarinen House has a history both before and ​after me, and that this installation is a moment where alternative histories ​can be observed.


I printed body images on sheets of faux leather and treated them like fine ​upholstery fabric. Playing with the visual language of the Decorative Arts I ​found a fascinating method of burling the image. By wrapping the image ​around a foam cylinder or tufting it with buttons like a fine English leather ​armchair, the work becomes less and less recognizable and begins to ​take on new first impressions.


One of my personal favorite and best-received works from this collection ​is an upholstered panel that I tufted which was displayed on a ready-​made log-cutting stand I ordered from Amazon. The panel contains a ​close-up image of the bird being shoved up the model's ass. By itself, the ​image is a quick read; a one-liner. However, once the image is ​transformed via printing and upholstery techniques the image becomes ​confusing and it takes longer for those who do not know what they are ​looking at to realize what is going on.



I am constantly thinking about referencing ​and how to utilize it. I have always loved the ​work of Sergei Parajanov and wanted to ​feed off his 1969 work “The Color of ​Pomegranates”.


I recreated three senses from “The Color of ​Pomegranates” and compiling them ​together to create a short video. I played a ​role in all three of the scenes and my peers ​took part as well. The original soundtrack ​from each scene plays over my recreation ​creating a hybrid form.


Here, all of my work which was originally ​intended for Saarinen House becomes part ​of a much more abstract take on Armenian ​storytelling. The final outcome was the video ​playing as an infinite loop on a small 26” by ​14” TV screen mounted on the same log-​cutting stand used for the upholstered ​panel.


A 1960s Saarinen Executive chair ​made by Knoll has been entirely ​wrapped in white duct tape serving ​as a cheap textile wrap.


When sat in by a viewer, this chair ​serves as the viewpoint to ​experience the video.


Nothing I make is the final product. ​All of my work is a mockup, a test to ​be handed off to a craftsperson for ​fabrication. I am more drawn to the ​idea of having something ​“fabricated” the “right way” rather ​than doing it myself. So much of the ​“Icon” of something is rotted in the ​precise method in which it was ​made.


“TOILE DE RAMBLE”

I started designing a repeating textile design that could be ​applied to anything I wanted. A bastardized toile fabric. Toile is ​such an Icon within the design world and denotes a certain ​type of Taste.


After having gone to the Ramble in Central Park in New York ​City over the summer, I wanted to explore the pastoral and ​domestic scenes of toile and allow for them to become erotic ​and voyeuristic. I was drawn to the idea that once installed, ​either as a fabric or wallcovering, that these graphic details ​become less pronounced and hidden within the Icon of the ​toile. A kind of Queer camouflage.


My new toile hides within the iconography of a tasteful motif. A ​domestic wallcovering, which exists as a ubiquitous product ​option now showcases a new narrative, only if you look closely ​enough. If you aren’t observant of its content you most ​definitely will have missed it.


Over the years, I’ve coined the term “Homo-fluge”.


The state of queered designed forms existing within plain sight without immediately being ​exposed for what they are.


Within my toile design, a heavily wooded area of Central Park that serves as an area for bird ​watching during the day and gay cruising during the night dating back to the early 20th ​century is documented within the context of the decorative.


The toile fabrics are driven by my lived experience, yet are still valuable within the history of ​Queer people. Acting as a kind of documentary of the times, the people and landscaped ​backdrops within the toile take direct reference to this specific site and community.

My Interior Design brain gets excited at the idea of forming ​relationships between the interior and exterior of a building. I am ​always interested in the opportunity to blur the boundary often ​defined by the window. Drapery is one of the most theatrical assets ​a designer has. An opportunity for instant drama. Curtains frame ​the window and also hide its occupants. It is an object of desire ​used to create a stark separation between the clean tidiness of the ​inside and the dirty random state of the outside world. I was thinking ​a lot about how the curtain does not function to project to the ​outside world. I was interested in how I could play with the traditional ​usage of a curtain and the ways in which we are taught to handle ​“Art”.


Within a residential context, value is placed on a curtain's interior ​facing condition. It is standard for a window curtain to have a solid-​colored backing as it serves the utilitarian function of blocking out ​the sun effectively and a practical function as a printed backing ​would fade much faster than its front-facing counterpart due to ​direct exposure to sunlight.


Within this space, the curtains act as a framing tool between the ​interior user and the exterior user.


When situated in the interior, the curtains create a white frame ​allowing for a rectangle of light to pierce the room. One of my red ​rubber birds is placed on the roof directly outside the window. The ​curtain allows for a direct sightline between the interior user and the ​work placed just outside.


When inside, it is only via this opening within the curtains that the ​true content of the curtains is exposed. As the toile can only be seen ​within the reflection of the window. A small area exists between the ​curtains and the window, allowing for reflections to occur which ​allow the pattern to be visible to the interior viewers. Otherwise, the ​curtains create the effect of an all-white space leaving the interior ​audience confused as to why the museum included a trigger ​warning upon entrance.


When situated from the exterior of the ​space all that can be seen is what ​appears to be a collection of standard ​black and white toile fabric curtains. Not ​unlike a set of curtains, your grandmother ​may have in her living room. Here, the ​sexual content of my toile is removed ​simply by taking away the distance ​needed to “read” the work. When viewed ​from the exterior the interior user becomes ​“framed” by the gap in the curtains and is ​highlighted to anybody viewing from the ​outside.


This work provocates display and its role of transmitting information clearly. Within this work, ​curtains function as an edge between tradition and subversion. Where the expected becomes ​slightly off-putting. Interior Codes are dissolved yet maintained. The relationship between the ​user and the content being exposed and withheld straddles the boundaries of Sculpture and ​Interior Design.


Kissing Door Knocker

What was once the front door to a home ​is now mounted upright. Independent ​from its intended architectural framing, ​this door acts as a method of display for ​a bespoke door knocker. The door is ​placed in the center of the gallery and ​the viewer is free to walk around the ​entirety of the object.


The door in its own right, is a sculptural ​form. The door and its accouterment ​have been painted with several layers of ​white bathtub enamel. The enamel ​crates a glass-like finish over the entity ​of the door.


A play on the iconic Victorian era. "Romeo ​and Juliet" knocker, this new form makes a ​slight deviation. Keeping with traditional ​iconography, the loop of the front of the ​knocker holds the face of a man. A slight ​modification has been made where the ​face of the woman mounted on the heart-​shaped backplate has been replaced with ​the face of another man. When the ​knocker is knocked the two men kiss.


This moment of object defamiliarization ​plays directly with expected Hetro forms of ​material culture, yet quietly changes the ​narrative. This area between expected and ​unnoticed is where “Homo-fluge” thrives.


KEEP in ​touch

elbakidzenicholas@gmail.com

(423) 488-0959