TBC Concept Gallery Presents Irina Jibuti’s First Solo Exhibition, From Earth to Fire, From Earth to Earth

TBC Concept Gallery will host Irina Jibuti’s first solo exhibition, From Earth to Fire, From Earth to Earth, from 9 October to 14 November.

TBC Concept Gallery creates a space for dialogue between art, education and research, introducing audiences to new works, diverse perspectives and creative processes.

The exhibition takes earth as its point of departure, not as a neutral raw material, but as the matter of a specific place, with its own composition, colour, properties, and history.

The exhibition is based on the study of natural clays collected from different locations across Georgia. In this process, earth becomes both the subject of research and an artistic material. Its extraction, processing, testing, forming, and firing gradually reveal a relationship between place, material, and human action.

Both floors of TBC Concept Gallery are dedicated to different states of this process. The first floor presents large-scale works- vertical ceramic bodies, a wall composition, and River- in which the same material appears in different states: formed, transformed, and still open to change.

The vertical forms draw on one of the oldest archetypes of the vessel, yet here they lose their functional purpose and become markers of human labour, time, and continuity. In the wall installation, clays collected from different locations are brought together within the same geometric form, while each retains its own nature - shrinking, cracking, deforming, and changing colour in different ways, as though each sample were preserving its own geological history. River, meanwhile, presents water as an active force, an element that softens, carries, and transforms earth, creating, through its constant movement, a dialogue between solidity and change.

The second-floor gallery is dedicated to a research laboratory- not an archive of completed research, but an ongoing process. Here, clays, minerals, and stones collected from different locations are presented alongside maps of their origins, test tiles, samples fired at different temperatures, glaze tests, small-scale forms, and process documentation. It is a space in which the material continues to reveal its possibilities through testing and observation.

From Earth to Fire, From Earth to Earth observes a cycle in which earth becomes material, material becomes form, and form becomes a body transformed by fire, while remaining part of a larger natural whole in which water, fire, time, and the human hand only temporarily alter its appearance.

Irina Jibuti is a ceramic artist, researcher, and educator. Her practice is grounded in the study of clay as a living material, exploring its physical, visual, and cultural properties. Through ongoing fieldwork in different regions of Georgia, she researches natural clays, studies local materials, and collects knowledge and practices associated with traditional pottery. Her practice includes both functional ceramics and sculptural objects and installations.

Irina received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Ceramics from the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts (2003–2010).

In 2026, Jibuti founded Commonland, a long-term research platform dedicated to studying Georgia’s clay resources and rethinking approaches to the development of ceramic materials.

Notable works include the raw-clay installation Column (2025); the clay land-art installation Spiral (2018, Tusheti); and Surface (2012, CCA–Tbilisi), an exhibition project with three installations made of ceramics and raw clay.

With a long-standing commitment to culture and the arts, TBC supports creative expression and contemporary practices, fostering a space where new ideas, perspectives and artistic dialogue can flourish.

Curator: Mariam Tsikharidze
Address: TBC Concept Flagship, 7 Marjanishvili St.
Opening Hours: Monday–Saturday, 10:00–20:00

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