Côte d'Azuri provided the context; Tbilisi the framework; and Sydney the means by which the dialogue could unfold. The impact of such support is lasting.
1. The Residence. The Reverie.
October 6 – 15, 2025, Cannes - France
Today, as we near twenty years, our commitment to critical, creative discourse in supporting emerging and mid-career artists within broader networks of practice takes on a renewed purpose. Serving Gaffa Creative Precinct in a curatorial capacity (2021-present), this interlude abroad affirmed our conviction that the vitality of local culture is not diminished, but enriched, through international dialogue.
It is with great honour we share the recount of this residency, alongside the announcement of a new working partnership with Ria Keburia Foundation. A bond we feel accentuates a special cultural diplomacy, curatorial vision and ethical practice.
Beyond the potential for future Georgian-Australian exhibitions and studio collaborations, the most profound gift was the presence of Ria herself. To sit with a founder who pioneers the undercurrent at all costs is to understand that residencies are not passive spaces but acts of conviction. Ria’s vision unyielding, generous and unapologetically future-facing creates a framework where global conversations feel not only possible but necessary.
Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and his inner life will result in their personal vision of the world.
To borrow Edward Hopper’s words, experiences of exchange do return with the artist, filtering into exhibitions, teaching, mentorship and engagement. Through this program, balancing dual directives of curator and artist - rarely stepping into the role of maker myself - opened a study of textile, skin and concealment, whilst the syllabus revealed fresh geographical trajectories.
Equally, the physical context of the residency cannot be understated. The neighbourhood apartment, provided a sense of belonging as a domestic anchor in a city so often framed by spectacle. At the doorstep, the ocean: a source of solitude, constancy and calm and a reminder that practice, like tides, ebbs and flow from both immersion and pause.
In the end, contemporary practice is never isolated. It is layered, with threads of lineage, community and advocacy. Our deepest gratitude to Ria for inviting us to align values that foster meaningful bridges across distances, ensuring local stories gain visibility on an international stage.
2. Research and Development: Homage.
The foundation’s curriculum for Tbilisi* artists, spanning Cannes, Nice and Antibes - France.
Undertaking their curriculum, reinforced the importance of Georgian artists abroad with an emphasis on accessing global rhetoric. Further providing not only the solitude for thought but also the stimulus of prolific figures. At the Musée Picasso in Antibes, the economy of line and the weight of gesture reinforced personal translations of seams into structure. At the Marc Chagall Museum in Nice, the luminous layering of Genesis echoed my use of denier to unveil memory and upbringing.
Equally significant were contemporary practitioners: Jean-Michel Othoniel’s transparent glass installations at the Centre d’Art Contemporain, offering moments of pause and an invitation to reflect on fragility and light in conversation. At Espace A Vendre, Jérémy Griffaud’s exhibition of watercolours unfolded as a meditation on texture, dissolution and fading gestures, noding Chagall’s ephemeral states whilst charting the act of unravelling. These mediums, with their inherent transparency and impermanence, mirrored my exploration of negative space - transformed into a positive field when stretched and reimagined.
Espace A Vendre itself plays a vital role in the Riviera’s contemporary art ecology. Positioned as a space for experimentation and dialogue, it provides visibility to emerging and mid-career artists who might otherwise be eclipsed by the region’s glamorous festival reputation. In doing so, it anchors Cannes and its surrounds as a site not only of spectacle but of sustained cultural inquiry. Encounters there reinforced how residencies like Ria Keburia’s are critical in connecting international artists to these local ecosystems, ensuring that exchange is lived, felt and continuous.
3. Artist Statement: Denier - Synthetic Silhouette.
Cannes - France, October 6 – 15, 2025
The ten days spent here offered more than time and space, it placed practice within a continuum of experimentation that stretches back over a century. The French Riviera and Cannes in particular, has long been a site where artists sought out the peculiar intensity of light, landscape and cultural exchange. For Picasso, Matisse, Chagall and Léger, the Côte d’Azur was not a retreat but a laboratory. It was here that colour was pushed into new registers, figuration broken open into abstraction and ordinary subjects elevated into extraordinary forms.
To work in Cannes is to be aware of these resonances. The glamour of cinema and festival culture still defines its international image, but beneath the surface lies a layered history of artistic experiment. Chapels, small museums and intimate galleries keep alive the Riviera’s modernist legacy, inviting new generations of artists into a conversation that is never closed. My project, Denier: Synthetic Silhouette, entered this dialogue by translating pantyhose into a medium of drawing and exposure.
In Denier, nylon becomes both surface and subject. Stretched and layered across paper, sheer fabrics generate a language of tone, opacity and shadow without a single drop of pigment. Runs and ladders mark lines, seams serve as contours and reinforced panels become compositional anchors. What once disciplined and concealed the body woven into dress codes, workplace rules and gendered expectations now liberates. Where modernism fractured and reassembled the body on canvas, I found in nylon a parallel register: a material that carries the politics of modesty while offering its own capacity for transformation.
To quote astrophysicist Cesarine Cesarsky; Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
Preliminary material courtesy of @tomykadze's curatorial inititive a @sketching_tbilisi. Proudly housed by @kickgarden.
Check back soon to preview works from Denier - Synthetic Silhouette, 2025.
4. On the Horizon: au-delà de l'horizon.
Written and produced by Angélique McLoughlin. Special acknowledgements to founders Ria Keburia and Aidan Li for their sponsorship and advisory.
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