The best of both worlds: an artist in IT – who is Gagosha?

At Exadel, he’s Giorgi Gagoshidze, our BA, helping to lead the company’s projects. But as the working day comes to an end, it gets darker and the streets get silent, he closes his laptop and just like that, without any help of magic god-fairies, he transforms into GAGOSHA — a night wanderer artist, the voice of Tbilisi.  

Walking in Tbilisi, you’re never alone: the ghost of Gagosha guides you through every street and forces you to stop, look, think, and feel. His stencils, graffiti, and poetry-like texts are everywhere:  on the walls of Soviet buildings, modern buildings, undergrounds, parks… With over 13.5K followers on Instagram and over 30K followers on Facebook, Gagosha remains one of Georgia’s most influential contemporary artists.

But at the same time, he’s a venerable part of Exadel’s team. Could you ever have guessed that we have such a mysterious and multi-talented celebrity on board? A famous artist who is also a key player in the IT world. Who is Gagosha? How does he manage to successfully connect two different areas of interest? Let’s delve into the story.

Two worlds collide: art and science

It turns out that for Gagosha it’s not really a big challenge to be a BA and an artist at the same time. While professionally studying Technology Administration at Tallinn University of Technology, in parallel he passionately pursued art, independently working on his talent in drawing.

Gagosha also mentioned that while it’s true that BA and art may not be conceptually connected, they still require some common skills.

Furthermore, Gagosha strongly believes that in the modern world art and science are no longer two different worlds: “Maybe it wasn’t like that in the past decade, but now – it is. Nowadays, everything’s digitalized. To be an artist in the 21st century means to adapt to the calling of the era. As a result, new trends have emerged – one of them is New Media Art which was basically the main concept of my last exhibition”.

It’s true, last year Gagosha held an exhibition where he seamlessly combined the world of technology and art. Some paintings interacted with the viewer: Paintings had built-in mechanics that activated after the visitor did something. Besides creating artworks, Gagosha also used his technical knowledge — he synthesized art with technology using sensors and microcontrollers. As he mentioned, this is just the beginning and he plans to transfer his unique art-technology synthesis into street art as well.

Street art as an instrument of self-expression

Before having the opportunity to hold his own exhibitions, Gagosha might have been seen as just another street artist, but as time went by, with his super creative views, simplicity, and strong sense of irony, he managed to stand out from others and become the personification of Tbilisi: “Gagosha is a garbage bin overflowing with your cast-away dreams” – says the writing on a wall,  perfectly summing up his existence to the habitants of the city.

“The thing I love about street art is that most people know my name and works but don’t recognize me in person. In street art, the artist is invisible, he’s not a visible representative – he simply leaves a message and it’s up to passers-by to receive it.”

What are these messages that Gagosha leaves for people on the urban landscape? He basically uses his art to pursue social activism: poverty, discrimination, unemployment, war, femicide – these are a few key themes Gagosha addresses. He executes this in a very creative and satiric way:

“I think that art, especially street art, should in some way explain the time and space in which we live. You can’t just paint flowers when epochal things are happening around you. That’s why I’m trying to comment on all of this using satire and irony as my main tools” – explains Gagosha.

People don’t always grasp his messages though. Not because they can’t understand, but because the topic Gagosha highlight might be unpleasant and painful to think about. During our interview Gagosha recalls the process of creating an artwork about femicide: passers-by applauded him saying that the piece was beautiful. “Only one person got the message. Others simply saw the esthetical side of it”.

Urban Interventions

However, that doesn’t bother Gagosha, because he’s not the kind of person who gives up easily.  He believes in change: “If I didn’t believe in change, I wouldn’t do anything, especially Street Art. When I leave a message on the wall, people will hear it and be affected by it: they’ll see themselves, they’ll be ashamed, they’ll be angry, they’ll be forced to think… These emotions sometimes result in action. And, yes, it may sound banal, but it’s true: if even one person is affected by my works, it already means that something has changed for the better in the world. This is a great motivation for me.”

It’s important to highlight that Gagosha’s art isn’t only about sending social-political messages to people. He also pursues one of the subgenres of street art, called Urban Intervention: He often surprises people with creativity using this method. Gagosha believes that art is everywhere and it’s all about observation. Those types of work make viewers see things in a different light, proving that everyday things can be extraordinary too.

It’s magical to think that when Gagosha works hard for Exadel, is on the calls with other team members, or does the tasks, someone out here in the streets of Georgia, stops and looks at the wall he created the night before. But it’s not just a simple look: it’s a whole process of self-reflection.

Gagosha’s one year at our company proves that he’s not only talented in creating art but also at managing projects as our BA. We’re very proud to have such a talented and hardworking person as a part of Exadel’s team. We’re sure the future has great surprises for him, and along the way, we’ll try to keep supporting him as much as we can. Best of luck from Exadel, Giorgi!