Ekaterina Gordeladze
HIDDEN Podcast: Ekaterina Gordeladze – Surfaces of Intimacy
Description:
In this in-depth episode of the HIDDEN Podcast, sculptor Ekaterina Gordeladze speaks from the midst of her diploma installation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (AVU). Graduating in 2025 from Figural Sculpture and Medal, she reflects on finding her language through shallow reliefs, the pull between painting and sculpture, and how intimacy, pressure, and space are negotiated on a plane only centimeters deep. Her recent series links bodies and thresholds using pigmented concrete, plaster, and experiments with transparent media.
From early 360-degree busts to large wall-based reliefs, Gordeladze speaks about material decisions that carry emotion: concrete for weight, ceramic for warmth, epoxy for light and partial transparency. She describes a still-ongoing desire to translate the work into glass and to test stone carving in the future.
What You’ll Discover:
Relief as a decision – Why she left the round figure for the shallow plane and how depth, subtraction, and addition coexist in one gesture.
Material choices – Pigmented concrete, plaster, and trials with epoxy and glass beads to open translucency without losing tactility.
From training to touch – How Brazilian jiu-jitsu sharpened her sense of spatial control and the closeness in the work.
Next steps – A short ceramic residency in Georgia, and long-term plans to test glass or stone for larger, more transparent installations.
Standout Quotes from the Episode:
“Motherhood definitely shaped my sense of physicality. For about four years, two little humans were constantly attached to my body—there’s no way around that.”
“I prefer relief because you get a single view. With a sculpture, you move thirty centimeters and the meaning changes completely.”
“I like ceramics. It’s more tactile and earthy than plaster or concrete, which feel dry and cold, especially with the themes I work on.”
Ekaterina Gordeladze (b. 1996) is a Prague-based sculptor working primarily in shallow relief. Born in Georgia and raised in the Czech Republic, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in Figural Sculpture and Medal from 2016 to 2025, following earlier studies at the Václav Hollar School of Art. Her diploma installation included works such as Go Thru (2025) in colored concrete and plaster, presented within a broader ensemble of reliefs exploring relational situations between bodies and the spaces they create.
In previous projects she tested fired ceramics and pigmented concrete to balance fragility and strength; recent experiments with epoxy and glass micro-beads pursued partial transparency and a viewer’s tactile curiosity. Gordeladze’s reliefs have been noted for connecting the body to space while maintaining an unexpectedly optimistic tone.
