I do not remember a specific moment when I decided to become an artist. Rather, throughout my life, somewhere deep inside, I had a strange feeling that I could paint and that a time would come when I would do it.

I could not connect this feeling to a particular reason — I simply knew that one day I would begin painting.

At 37, this inner waiting seemed to end by itself and turn into action. Beginning to paint felt more like an awakening than a decision.

Art, taste and aesthetics were always important in my family, although I did not receive an art education myself.

My aunt was an architect and restorer who worked on a number of historic monuments in Georgia. I also know from family history about murals painted by my maternal grandfather. They were preserved even during reconstruction and remained for many years in the town where he was born and raised.

I see these stories differently today. In childhood they were simply family stories. Now I think that an inclination towards creativity may, in some form, have been part of my inherited background long before I began painting.

At first I relied almost entirely on intuition.

Then came constant work — looking, observing, reading, analysing, trying different materials, making mistakes and searching for new approaches. Perhaps one interesting aspect of being self-taught was that I had no predetermined framework for how I ‘should’ paint.

Working with a French curator was also an important stage. One particular assignment made me think about a work not only in terms of its visual result, but also its concept. That was when I began to explore more consciously why a particular work comes into being and what it carries beyond form and colour.

That process has never stopped. I do not think an artist’s language is ever finally formed or finished — it continues to change with the artist.

From the beginning, I approach a work with the inner sense that I am creating something alive — as though I need to breathe life into form, colour and line.

Line, colour, movement and rhythm matter deeply to me, but using them correctly in a technical sense is not enough. Everything can be in the right place and a work can still evoke nothing. For me, it comes alive when an inner energy emerges between these elements and the image begins an independent existence.

Once, while I was working on sometsuke, my sensei looked at the lines I had drawn and told me that every line was alive. That observation stayed with me, because in Japanese porcelain a line is not merely an outline — it has its own energy, character and movement.

I often hear something similar about my colours. People sometimes describe movement, colour, mood or another sensation even where a work is almost monochrome. At such moments I feel that the life I try to give a work can also be perceived from the outside.

That is what matters most to me — for an artwork to go beyond its visual form and continue to exist within a person in its own way.

I do not draw strict boundaries between media.

Acrylic has one character and ink an entirely different one. Mineral pigment catches light differently, cobalt behaves in its own way on porcelain, and digital space opens up other possibilities altogether.

Each has its own language.

So my main question is not simply ‘What should I use to make this?’ I am more interested in what a particular idea, state or feeling needs.

I am interested in the moment when an artwork goes beyond being a visual image and begins to resonate with the viewer — through colour, line, movement, rhythm and atmosphere.

Sometimes that resonance is an emotion, sometimes an association, a mood or a feeling that is difficult to explain. I like it when a work makes someone feel something before they begin to put it into words.

Very significantly.

Tokyo is an enormous, fast and extremely dynamic city, yet despite its scale it is remarkably orderly and often peaceful. It was here that I began to perceive silence differently.

Japanese culture taught me the importance of space — that an empty area is not necessarily emptiness. Sometimes it is as important a part of a work as what is visible within it.

Studying sometsuke deepened this understanding. A line must be considered and precise, but if you control it too much, it loses its life. I found this balance between control and freedom fascinating.

Encountering tea culture, Zen philosophy and Japanese aesthetics also taught me that more elements do not always mean more meaning.

My works have perhaps become simpler and more restrained, but for me it is precisely in this simplicity that greater depth has emerged.

Japan changed not only how I create, but also how I look — at space, detail, time and silence.

For me, they are not separate worlds.

The medium changes, but the principle of seeing often remains the same.

I was interested in mobile photography before, but in Tokyo my approach to working with light and movement became clearer. Here I may search through light for what I explore through colour in painting. On porcelain, line may become central; in digital space, it may be form, colour or movement.

That is why I have never wanted to define myself through a single technique.

I am interested in how the same inner feeling can be translated into different visual languages and take an entirely new form each time.

One of the earliest instances was probably a work on the theme of the pomegranate. Its digital version sold in Australia, while the original remained with a Georgian collector. Soon afterwards, I was contacted from Melbourne for permission to use the work on bags and greeting cards. That collaboration lasted about two years.

Later, one of my works appeared in a Singulart interior-design article, took part in a Paris auction and was included in a special curated collection. My works also entered private collections in different countries.

Working on wine labels was particularly interesting. The commissioning company often told me that it was the label artwork that attracted attention at international exhibitions. I especially remember the observation that black-and-white lines evoked colourful and moving associations in people.

Such responses mean a great deal to me, because that is when you realise that a work is beginning to live independently and turning into a completely different experience within each person.

I have a master’s degree in law. For many years I worked in banking, finance and auditing, and my professional work today is still in another field.

A single professional direction has never been enough for me. Different fields have always interested me naturally, and I did not see them as separate worlds.

Structure, responsibility, analysis and rational thinking help my creative process, while intuition, freedom and imagination allow me to move beyond those frameworks. These experiences complement one another and shape different sides of my outlook.

I have also studied precious metals and gemstones. This is another world for me — one of light, colour, structure and material — and I am particularly interested in connecting it with my creative practice in the future.

I am increasingly less interested in simply finishing a work ‘beautifully’.

I am more interested in what happens before that — how a feeling is born, and how colour, line, light, movement or space can evoke something in a person before they begin to explain it.

I am also very interested in the boundary between the physical and digital worlds, and in how a single visual language can continue in entirely different forms.

New materials also attract me. The world of precious stones and metals is still partly unexplored territory for me, and I am interested in connecting it with my practice.

My direction feels fairly clear, but I do not want to define in advance what form this path will take. The search itself is part of my practice.