Salomeya Bauer (b. 1989) is a Georgian multimedia artist based in Tbilisi and working across painting, experimental film and performance. In the early 1990s she was displaced from Georgia due to the Civil War. In 2014, after graduating from VGIK as a documentary filmmaker, she returned to her homeland, where she began developing her experimental cinematic practice and distinctive visual language as a painter. Her first solo exhibition took place at the State Museum of Georgian Literature in Tbilisi in 2017. Since then, she has participated in numerous exhibitions, festivals, and artist residencies, including The Transcultural Art Lab, Juist, Germany (2018), International Festival of Contemporary Art "To be a woman. Maiden Tower", Baku, Azerbaijan, 2019, Imagine/Caucasus Edition peacebuilding workshops in collaboration with the US Embassy (2022), and Tbilisi Art Fair (2024). In 2023, Bauer was selected to represent Georgia in the Global Feminist Pitch by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, for which she created a graphic novel exploring women’s roles in the social processes of 1990s Georgia. Her artworks were included in the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) feminist calendars in 2024 and 2025. In 2026, she presented two solo exhibitions: Throwback Homeland at the Ambrolauri State Museum of Fine Arts and I SAW A DREAM at La Cotorra Galerie, Valencia, Spain. Her paintings are held in private collections across the EU, the USA, and the UK, as well as in the permanent collections of Tbilisi City Hall’s National Youth Palace and the Ambrolauri State Museum of Fine Arts.
Bauer’s practice explores the tensions between individual consciousness and collective experience, examining the unconscious mind, archetypal structures, and the psychological transformations that shape human identity. Drawing on observation, documentary methods, and the interpretation of subjective reality, she traces the shifting boundaries between personal memory and historical experience. Her paintings and moving-image works function as poetic reflections on contemporary life, revealing the fragile territories where inner conflicts intersect with social structures. Engaging with questions of queerness, displacement, separatism, and integration, Bauer investigates the complex relationship between the individual and society, approaching self-identification as an ongoing process of psychological and cultural negotiation.
At the core of Bauer’s artistic method lies an interest in borderline states of consciousness, unconscious archetypes, and the cyclical nature of personal and collective transformation. By weaving intimate experience into broader historical narratives, she constructs visual worlds in which the psychological and the social become inseparable. Her method frequently returns to the ruptures of history and mythology and their lasting imprint on individual lives, exploring how inherited experiences, suppressed memories, and social change shape the formation of identity. Through painting, moving-image, and storytelling, Bauer seeks to articulate the invisible structures of human experience, transforming subjective realities into images that resonate beyond the personal and become reflections on the collective.
Selected solo exhibitions:
I SAW A DREAM at La Cotorra Galerie, Valencia, Spain, 2026
THROWBACK HOMELAND, the Ambrolauri State Museum of Fine Arts, 2026 VERNISSAGE, Art City People, Berlin, Germany, 2025
ISOLATION, Faza Space, Baku, Azerbaijan, 2019;
Curriculum Vitae
ARTIST’s SPACE, Untitled gallery, Tbilisi, 2019;
AQUARIUM, Contemporary Art Space, Batumi, Georgia, 2018;
MEZZANINE, Giorgi Leonidze State Museum of Georgian Literature, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2017
Selected group exhibitions, residencies and art projects:
Represented by La Cotorra Galeria at Arte Laguna World, Venice, Italy, 2026
Ria Keburia Foundation, Artist in residence, Cannes, France, 2025;
Tbilisi Crossroads art and piecebuilding residency, organised by ArtasFoundation, Swiss Foundation for Art in Regions of Conflict and Untitled Gallery, Arteli Racha, Georgia, 2024; Represented by Dissolution Gallery at Tbilisi Art Fair 2024;
Co-curator and participant in a collective project A Room of Own’s Own, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2024; Participation in a group project The Burden of the River, organized by Collective Failure and TES Club, with USAID support, Georgia, 2023;
Participation in a group art project The Landscapes of the Invisible, organized by Collective Failure, NGO Climate Basics, Georgia, 2023;
Participation in group exhibition NoBorderland at Untitled gallery, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2022;
Meetings on the Bridge program by International Istanbul Film Festival, Istanbul, Turkey, 2022; NoBorderland residency program, with support of USA Embassy, Tskhaltubo, Georgia, 2022; Imagine Centre for Conflict Transformation, regional Multimedia Workshop, with support of USA Embassy, Bakuriani, Georgia 2022;
Imagine Centre's Summer School, with support of USA Embassy, Telavi, Georgia 2022; Scriptwriting laboratory Alternative Wave, Batumi, Georgia, 2021;
Residency program for scriptwriters and directors organized by Svaneti International Film Festival and Georgian Ministry of Culture, Ushguli (UNESCO protected area), Georgia, 2021;
Ria Keburia Foundation, Kachreti, Georgia, 2020;
Laboratory 2/20 Batumi, Georgia, 2020;
Participation in international festival of contemporary art To be a woman. Maiden Tower, Baku, Azerbaijan, 2019;
Group show at "ARTBOX. PROJECT New York 1.0" at the Armory Artweeks New York, USA, 2018; The Transcultural Art Lab 2018 at Island Juist, Germany, funded by Erasmus+ program, 2018; Berlinale International Film Festival, Berlinale Talents, Berlin, Germany, 2017;
Cannes International Film Festival, Shortemetrage Corner, Cannes, France, 2013;
EastDoc Platform, Prague, Czech Republic, 2013
Selected filmography and moving-image:
The View (2024) visual poetry, Svaneti, Georgia
River’s Lullaby (2924) visual poetry, Enguri Dam, Georgia
Virgin Seed (2022) experimental movie, Tskhaltubo, Georgia
Liza under The Influence (2016) documentary, 46 min, HD Fugue (2017) short fiction, 17 min, 4K
Mocekvave/Dancer (2014) documentary, 35 min, HD, Georgia
Waltz. Surf. (2010) documentary, 15 min, 35 mm
