BRUSSELS.- From January 15 to April 11, 2026, La Verrière, the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès exhibition space in Brussels, presents “Quatre” (Four) by Elene Shatberashvili which brings together around twenty paintings spanning a decade of work, some of which have never been seen before. This wall constellation enriches the viewers gaze with varied perspectives, thanks to paintings by Vera Pagava, Nathanaëlle Herbelin, Mathilda Marque Bouaret, Miranda Webster and Jean Claracq, as well as furniture by Rooms Studio and Johan Viladrich, and a text by Philippe François.

A Georgian artist based in France since 2011, Elene Shatberashvili is a painter whose practice is both free and intense. Her work traces a journey between figure and symbol, absence and memory, the finished and unfinished. The exhibition features self-portraits, scenes from everyday life, and still lifes, all characterised by geometric, almost kaleidoscopic shapes. This constant play of reflections, reinforced by the presence of screens, windows and mirrors, opens up and expands the viewer’s gaze.

The exhibition presents a panorama of objects that populate the artist’s universe: tables, flowers, eggs and apples, evoking planets and halos. It takes the form of powerful images that leave a lasting impression on the viewer’s body and mind. Through her continual exploration of light, Elene Shatberashvili creates works that seem to possess a captivating aura. The public is invited into the heart of her image-making process, where she constantly seeks a state of grace that guides her actions and is reflected on the canvas.

The title “Quatre” denotes Elene Shatberashvili’s fourth solo exhibition. Joël Riff is collaborating with the artist for the first time and presenting his tenth exhibition at La Verrière. Following the principle of the “augmented solo”, the exhibition brings together around forty works and design objects. Among them are paintings by Nathanaëlle Herbelin, Miranda Webster and Jean Claracq, Elene Shatberashvili’s classmates at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, as well as works by Mathilda Marque Bouaret. The presence of Vera Pagava (1907-1988) evokes the influence of this tutelary figure, while raw furniture by Rooms Studio and Johan Viladrich contrasts with the paintings’ perspectives.

“QUATRE”

Elene Shatberashvili paints what she sees and what she has seen. She captures the reality of a vision on canvas. Whether it is an apple or an orb, it is always perception that shapes the play of light, bouncing off a hard surface or diffusing into the thickness of the ether. It exists.

The artist strives to produce the image, with a conviction that is persuasive. She dispels all scepticism. Let us believe. Her paintings depict sensitive, fiercely radiant fragments. Nourished by Byzantine tradition, they develop their own relationship with the existential background that religious iconography covers with unified colours – or even gold – visually sketching a path toward the ultimate, that famous window. Or, perhaps even more so, a passage from elsewhere to us, opening onto what captures our attention. These movements are possible when everything circulates, when air currents provide the oxygen necessary for incandescence. It culminates when red burns, consuming itself before giving way to white, blinding us as much as the black of darkness. From one extreme to the other, in contrast to the darkness, the artist shares the visible just before the flash of light.

Elene Shatberashvili selects. Her eye isolates through meticulous, incisive observation, cutting out real pieces from the realm of the perceptible. Some subjects even find themselves directly exposed within the surroundings of their image. The dynamic of the double is at play everywhere. And her studio is a vast magma where her work and her life, what she represents and what she eats, merge. Often, it is one and the same thing. This has nothing to do with disorder. Everything seems to respond to an underlying coherence, even on the stained carpet. In this respect, her practice could be considered still life, but the artist does not think of it in those terms. For her, it is one genre among others, expressed through a choice of objects, their arrangement, geometry and craftsmanship. According to her, the best compositions emerge when everyday objects with symbolic and sentimental value find balance in space that can only be fully represented on canvas. For her, the studio is above all a place of rest. Before her eyes, she follows the course of events without worrying about the passing of time. The emails will have to wait.

Elene Shatberashvili loves colour. It must be vibrant.

So it needs to be given strength. Everything relies on its glory. Tensions are negotiated, these contrasts between subtle shades that animate a point of convergence in the painting. And perhaps breathe life into it. The artist claims to be able to create, through chromatic membranes, a skin that breathes. At the moment, she has just finished two small pieces works – grapes – and is wrestling with medium-sized, semi-abstract works. She is also inspired by the vegetation visible from her skylight. She is interested in technique as long as it contributes to a lively flow. This projection of the self, explicit in the practice of self-portraiture, is constantly at play. The mirror is omnipresent in the painter’s work, whether it reflects her face, multiplies other lines, or is simply an outline cutting out a rebounding area. Hence the irreducible vertigo of always painting oneself, whatever one paints. This leads one to think that creating with four hands, with two hands reflecting each other, is above all creating by oneself, with full awareness of it.

The exhibition “Quatre” (Four) is the artist’s fourth solo show. To counteract the deceptive aspect of being so confrontational, one must seize this invitation to confront. Let us observe things as they are. An irreducible flagrancy imposes itself. There is a real delight in tautology. It is.

This and that, and that is that. Before seeking to identify the excellence of the curve of this egg, the delicate design of this flower, the lustre of this piece of furniture, the fold of this tablecloth, the reflection of this screen, the outline of this mirror, the skin of this fish, the decoration of this plate, the transparency of this jar, the angle of this door, the stem of this aubergine, the shadow of this ladder, this light fixture, this vegetable, this bowl, this chair, we still have a long way to go before we can simply enjoy the colours spread out before us. Let’s keep it simple.

And of course, it is complicated not to immediately project anything onto what we are examining. From the start, the artist wanted to number her solo exhibitions. This was not possible for the first, second or third, but now it is. One, two, three, four.

Elene Shatberashvili must be able to make a mess.

Her workplace bears witness to this, in keeping with the works that emerge from this organic womb where everything is in gestation. Incidentally, it is only once outside that the paintings are finished. The artist stains her palette, her canvas, her space, following a principle of painting that is necessarily the opposite of cleanliness, inherently smudged. Some areas are left unfinished, roughly sketched. Starting by dirtying allows the virginity of the white to be destroyed. It goes beyond primal fear. Old paintings may be covered over to provide the conditions for reaction, or even deliberately left dormant for months to better awaken new energy later on.

The painter mixes and spoils her oils, like the grey and dusty stagnation she perceives around her. This mythical cave is a confused matrix. The astonishment is complete when a detail lights up. Thus, the colour is rarely pure, except when a touch, a line, or a petal emerges dramatically. In her cosmos, stars shine.

The exhibition “Quatre” establishes stability. It holds together, like a table with enough legs. It’s time to ask ourselves how many are enough, or even how many are too many. We count, although the artist describes herself as slow. The exhibition spans ten years of work, from an archaic mosaic to brand new productions.

From her generation, painters Jean Claracq, Nathanaëlle Herbelin, Mathilda Marque Bouaret and Miranda Webster help embody this membrane dear to the artist, through a bewildering variety of skin tones. This creates a sensation of a surface that is constantly excited, and, in this case, categorical. The marked presence of Vera Pagava offers a unique perspective on everything the two women share, one dying two years before the other was born.

Having Georgia in common, Rooms Studio allows us to sit at Johan Viladrich’s setting. This furniture affirms the cultural importance of the banquet. Theologist Philippe François joins the gathering to enlighten us on the uses of the tetra, its definitions, its resolutions, its images. Mental, emotional and physical, the artist sees them. Let’s believe her.

Joël Riff

Elene Shatberashvili looks at what lies before her. Born in 1990 in Tbilisi, Georgia, she moved to France to study, first architecture and then painting, joining Tim Eitel’s studio at the Beaux-Arts in Paris. She graduated in 2019 and then went on to pursue a postgraduate degree at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg in 2021. After spending some time in her native country, she returned to Paris in 2022, where she flourished among a community she had met at school. Public institutions and private collections gradually reinforced the foundations of her unwavering style.

She is preparing her first solo exhibition in Georgia, scheduled at the LC Queisser Gallery in Tbilisi in the spring of 2026. Her work is held in the collections of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris as well as in numerous private collections.

Elene Shatberashvili and Joël Riff met during two studio visits in March 2024 and May 2025 in Paris.

The exhibition “Quatre” is their first collaboration.