He is no longer there, but I still fill him

by Gela Mikava · T'bilisi, GE

Mixed media on Soviet-era cotton fabric. This work addresses post-socialist trauma — the persistent psychological space left in the wake of absence, which time cannot neutralize. The layering of text fragments and gestural paint creates a fractured structure of memory, where emotion attempts to fill the void of a disappeared or lost identity. The use of Soviet-era cotton fabric carries not only material significance, but also symbolic weight — serving as a skin of the past on which the new era is still being redrawn. The blurred figure, the raw red lower layer, and the visible root-like lines form a visual metaphor for inherited pain and the unresolved weight of memory.