Irakli Bugiani is a Georgian-born, Düsseldorf-based painter whose work explores the tension between natural and man-made worlds. Born in Tbilisi, he grew up during the final years of the Soviet Union—a time marked by uncertainty and transformation. Trained as both a painter and an art historian, Bugiani blurs the boundary between the external world and introspection. His dreamlike oil paintings layer expressive brushwork with vivid color, rough textures, and a psychedelic sensibility. Shaped by shifting cultures and system transitions, they render reality as something both poetic and cinematic—an in-between space where memory, landscape, and perception collide.
His exhibitions include Links (Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York, 2024), NADA Miami (2023), Vision Seeker (Gallery ArtBeat, Tbilisi, 2022), and To See a World in a Grain of Sand (Georgian National Museum, 2016). From 2014 to 2015, he initiated 191°S, an artist-driven project in dialogue with music and nightlife, with murals at Salon des Amateurs and Weltkunstzimmer Düsseldorf.
At MacDowell, Bugiani developed a new body of paintings in response to the surrounding landscape and the global atmosphere of instability—reflecting on fragility, transformation, and the emotional weight of place.
Irakli Bugiani
Studios
Firth
Irakli Bugiani worked in the Firth studio.
Originally a working barn perched atop the namesake hill of Hillcrest Farm, this building was converted to serve the arts in 1956 and named The Barn Studio. A grand set of windows was installed to make the large interior suitable for visual artists, bringing in abundant natural light from the north…