Yuri Mechitov

Yuri Mechitov is a locally renowned photographer from Tbilisi, Georgia.

In October 2005 Mechitov's exhibition was hosted at 20 Galaktion Tabidze St. in Tbilisi.

The core part of the exhibition was series of portraits of different people - a shoemaker, an artist, a journalist, a TV operator, a film director, a photographer - in a word; various faces with individual life stories.

But what these people had in common was that they were Armenians living in Tbilisi. In addition, as the photographer noted, all his photo-heroes have "Armenian sorrow" in their eyes.

This sorrow, he said, is by and large a product of the tragic history of the Armenian people, though some of it is due to the rapid changes underway in their native Tbilisi.

According to Mechitov, he has been working on that project for approximately three years. As he said, inspiration came from the Armenian 19-century artist Akop Vovnatanian, who used to paint Tbilisians. Consequently, that collection was entitled Armenians from Tbilisi - dedication to Akop Vovnatanian.

"My mother was a true Armenian, but father had a more Georgian orientation," said Mechitov, adding that he is quite upset that some want to "plant the seeds of animosity" against Armenians and show these people from a negative perspective. "These people live in Tbilisi and are patriots of the city, so with this collection I want to express my respect to these Armenians."

Artist and art critic Nino Zaalishvili noted that she knows many people from this series and has seen their portraits mostly in paintings, but not in photographs.

"These Armenians are real residents of Tbilisi and I was very curious to see their portraits from Yuri Mechitov's artistic viewpoint"

Sources

• EYES FULL OF ARMENIAN SORROWilisi., By Nino Gvalia. The Messenger, Georgia, October 3 2005