Era Khelovneba

Always and everywhere.

ERA Khelovneba, Born May 17, 1982. in Kutaisi, Georgia, she walks the same streets of Basel as you, lives in her own illusory world. She loves her job, writes poetry and prose and draws, paints…

She is an artist – architect, creative force who writes and dreams.
Since childhood she drew asymmetrically with both hands at the same time. Until the age of 8 she wrote with both hands. At this age she made her first drawings with ballpoint pens, which later found a place in the debut volume of her works. At the same age, she finally decided that she was a Shulga left-handed (due to the typing speed advantage).
Drawings were everywhere – in exercise books, drafts, on random slips of paper. Simply everywhere. Later she started sticking them on the back cover of her textbook. This resulted in 5 booklets in which 1,900 works were glued in by hand. These notebooks are like my soul.

1994–1995 – studied at the Chernivtsi Art School No. 1.
1995–1996 – attended the art club of Chernivtsi Gymnasium No. 4 named after Panas Myrny. In the same year, 1996, she took 2nd place at the municipal art olympiad.
1997 – first place in the caricature competition at Chernivtsi Lyceum No. 1. Her other illustrations adorn the Lyceum Literary Almanac.
1999 – when she started at the Faculty of Architecture, she completed preparatory studies in academic drawing with leading Lviv artists.
Since 2004 she has worked as an architect.
In 2006 she took part in the group exhibition “Lviv Landscapes” on the occasion of the 750th anniversary of the city of Lviv.

In 2014, the doctors made a disappointing diagnosis (multiple sclerosis). This forced Irina to prioritize her life and remember who she really wanted to be.
Since her name Iryna Nefyodova was associated with architecture, she decided to use the pseudonym ERA Khelovneba in art.

ART – art, ERA – that’s what a friend called her when she asked her to draw something when the first notebook was published. Khelovneba (ხელოვნება) is “art” on Georgian. ART&ERA – artaera – became their nickname everywhere. So this is her ERA of art.

Without giving up her architectural activities, in 2019 her first exhibition “The World in My Small World” took place in the “Museum of Ideas” located in the center of the ancient K&K city of Lviv, the capital of Galicia. The successful debut was more than noticed by visitors and the Union of Artists of Ukraine and art critics. In particular, the professor, Lviv National Academy of Arts, Roman Yatsiv, noted that the works have high artistic value due to the technique and uniqueness of the original author. There have been publications in mass media and electronic publications. In the same year, 2019, she held her next extended solo exhibition with great success, timed to coincide with the anniversary of her home faculty “Architectural Environment Design” at Lviv Polytechnic National University. Later, the exhibition of works “Graphic Phantasmagorias” continued in the halls of “Lviv Manufactory”. At the end of 2019, 12 works by the artist were presented in Kiev in the “Karas Gallery” at the annual exhibition of the art project of Ukraine “A4, ballpoint pen”.

02/20/2020 — the opening of the exhibition “illusion of time” took place. It was an incredible performance presenting 60 new works. This exhibition was then listed as the best platform to visit, just a place to stay and immerse yourself in art and communication. Finally, the exhibition contained not only works of art, complemented by descriptive poems, but also prose, poems and photographs by the artist. It was a place of reflection and discussion for the visitors. During the exhibition there were meetings with the Association of Art Teachers, evenings of poetry by the artist. Unfortunately, the exhibition had to be closed prematurely (a week earlier) due to the onset of the pandemic. Due to Covid-19, the planned exhibitions in Kiev and Milan did not take place.

In 2022 the war in Ukraine began. The artist had to emigrate to Switzerland. In the first days of the war, 3 emotional works were created (tea, milk, candle, hairspray, A4 paper). These works are now on display in the main hall of the Basel Historical Museum (#50). The artist also created a panel (3×8 meters) for the entrance to the escape room for “Black out” in Basel.

The main works presented to the viewer are three acrylic works on canvas (1×1.8 meters). These are special emotional works with a unique expressiveness. They were drawn in early 2022, 10 days before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. These are not just emotional works, created in anticipation of the inevitability and irreversibility of the events that have changed world history, they are a snapshot of emotional compression in general, like a journey through time.