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Thesis (Provisional Title): Clerical Perspectives: Art, Patronage and Agency in the Georgian Kingdom, 1089–1184 

Supervised by Professor Antony Eastmond, Advised by Dr Jessica Barker

Funded by the and The �鶹��Ƶ Postgraduate Scholarship

This thesis undertakes the study of the various identities, ideologies, and patronage in twelfth-century Georgian art. While looking at iconography, material, and contents through the objects of various media – ranging from monumental painting to portative pectorals – the project seeks to tackle a discussion on how/why art could have been manipulated for the manifestation of interests, political influence, and self-fashioning of royalty, aristocracy, and clergy. This study tries to shift the formalistic and nationalistic approaches that dominate Georgian art history to relatively broader notions of social history and political theology while conducting relevant comparisons with the same themes in Byzantium and beyond.

Education

2018–2020 MA Art History (‘Cultural Heritage and Modernity’), Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, The Institute of Art History and Theory (Distinction)

2014–2018 BA Art History (major), Byzantine Studies (minor), Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, The Institute of Art History and Theory (Distinction)

Teaching Experience

2024/25, Associate Lecturer, Semester 1, BA2/3 Histories ‘Art and Crusades’

Summer 2024, Teaching Assistant, Summer University, The �鶹��Ƶ

2023/24, Teaching Assistant, Semester 1, BA1 Foundations, The �鶹��Ƶ

Summer 2023, Teaching Assistant, Summer University, The �鶹��Ƶ

Summer 2022, Teaching Assistant, Summer University, The �鶹��Ƶ

Professional Activity

December 2020–March 2021, Research Assistant, The University of California, Santa Barbara

May–July 2019, Research Assistant, The Johns Hopkins University

March 2019–September 2021, Research Assistant in The Centre for Georgian Art Studies, The Institute of Art History and Theory at The Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University.

Publications

Books

Dimitri Gordeev, Studies in Medieval Georgian Art, Edited by Zaza Skhirtladze and Irakli Tezelashvili (Tbilisi: Tbilisi State University Press, Forthcoming).

Materials for the �鶹��Ƶ of the Murals of the Church of Saint Gregory in Ani. Notes by Nikolai Sichev 1911–1912, Edited by Zaza Skhirtladze, Irakli Tezelashvili, and Nikolai Smirnov (Tbilisi: Tbilisi State University Press, 2019).

Book Chapters

“Dimitri Gordeev. Materials for Biography and Bibliography. Addenda Bibliographica“, in Dimitri Gordeev, Studies in Medieval Georgian Art, Edited by Zaza Skhirtladze and Irakli Tezelashvili (Tbilisi: Tbilisi State University Press, Forthcoming), xvii–xxxviii, 500–30.

“Materials for the �鶹��Ƶ of Murals of Saint Gregory in Ani. Notes by Nikolai Sichev 1911–1912”, in Zaza Skhirtladze ed., Ed., Ani and Georgia, vol. 3 (Tbilisi: Tbilisi State University Press, 2020), 437–521 [co-authored with Zaza Skhirtladze].

“Materials about the Church of Saint Gregory in Ani from Dimitri Gordeev’s Expeditions”, in Zaza Skhirtladze Ed., Ani and Georgia, vol. 3 (Tbilisi: Tbilisi State University Press, 2020), 522–33 [co-authored with Zaza Skhirtladze].

Articles

“Materials for the �鶹��Ƶ of Ancha Icon of Saviour and Tsilkani Icon of the Virgin”, Proceedings of Gelati Academy of Sciences IV (2018): 211–53 (in Georgian) [co-authored with Zaza Skhirtladze]

Projects/Grants

The �鶹��Ƶ Research Grants: 2022, 2023, 2024.

2021 May–November, [Phase II] (Funded by the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University) (with Zaza Skhirtladze, Elizabeth Ugulava, Salome Meladze, Tamar Letodiani, Keti Gongadze, and Gia Shervashidze).

2020 November, Caroline Adams Essay Prize for an essay .

2020 July–December, [Phase I] (Funded by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of Georgia) (with Zaza Skhirtladze, Elizabeth Ugulava, Salome Meladze, Tamar Letodiani, Keti Gongadze, and Gia Shervashidze).

Conference Presentations and Public Talks (Recent)

9 July 2025, ‘“The Men of Honourable Life Adorned with All Virtues“: Theological Learning, Patronal Agency, and Artistic Production in 12th-Century Georgia’, International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds.

13 April 2025, ‘“Painted and adorned for the salvation of all of this valley: great and lesser“: Svan Churches of T’evdore, ‘the King’s Painter,’ Revisited’, 56th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies: Byzantium from Below: Rural and Non-elite Life in the Byzantine World, University of Birmingham.

1 July 2024, ‘Dynastic Legitimacy: The Visual Responses to Royal Successions in High Medieval Georgia’, International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds.

16 May 2024, ‘The Royal Foundation? Art, Memory and Authority at Gelati Monastery’, Year 3 PhD Symposium, The �鶹��Ƶ Institute of Art.

7 October 2023, ‘Vested in Privilege: Polystaurion in Byzantium and Beyond,’ Constantinople and Mtskheta: Ecclesiastical and Cultural Interactions, Ecumenical Patriarchate: Halki Theological School, Organised by the Georgian Parish of Constantinople, İstanbul, Türkiye.

2 May 2023, ‘Art and Patronage in Twelfth-Century Georgia: The Icon of Christ from Gelati Monastery,’ The �鶹��Ƶ Institute of Art, Year 2 Byzantine, Medieval and Renaissance PhD Symposium.

Summer Schools/Workshops

2024–25, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University.

20 June–4 July 2022, , Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED), Cappadocia, Nevşehir, Türkiye.

Membership of the Research Societies/Centres

ICOM UK

January 2023–  Student Member

January 2022– Student Member, Postgraduate Associate at the Executive Committee  

January 2022– , Student Member