Japanese Woman Pencil on Paper 24” x 16”
The hyperrealistic drawings of Tiko Sanikidze stretch beyond photorealism to construct a new reality of the artist’s own making. Although Sanikidze works from photographs, videos, and the like, her art is not a literal interpretation or copy of these images. Instead, she adds details a camera can’t capture and enhances certain aspects of the composition in order to express more than what is merely visible. “The Hyperrealist style focuses much more on its emphasis on detail and the subjects depicted… utilizing additional, often subtle, pictorial elements to create the illusion of a reality which in fact either does not exist or cannot be seen by the human eye,” Sanikidze explains. This allows her to incorporate social, cultural, and political themes into her compositions, giving her viewers a fresh emotional perspective on scenes and situations they encounter everyday. The extreme level of detail Sanikidze builds in each piece requires an enormous amount of time and patience, with a single drawing sometimes taking months to complete.