Toma Stenko: An interview with award-winning artist and fashion designer

Named by Vogue as one of the world’s top 20 emerging fashion designers, Georgian-born Toma Stenko is a famed artist and fashion designer. Her talents don’t fall short there, recognised also as an award-winning director whose documentaries and short films have received acclaim at international film festivals. Recently, she has been busy with two art exhibitions: ‘Fragile Angel’ on the Grande Canal in Venice and ‘Laura. The Muse of love’ at Qatar International Art Festival.

We chat to Toma, following her recent exhibitions, to discover more about her heritage, the influences behind her work and what message she seeks to send to her audiences…

Can you tell us about yourself?

I was born in 1980 in Georgia, and currently I am based in London. Painting is not the only medium I work with, as I am also a film director and fashion designer. I graduated St. Martin’s School with a fashion design Bachelor’s and Master’s diplomas. In my work I like to delve into the complex emotions of love and explore what love means to me – the family, the couple, the friendship.

You recently opened an exhibition, ‘Fragile Angel’, to coincide with Venice Film Festival on the Grande Canal in Venice. What did you seek to achieve with this exhibition?

The ‘Fragile Angel’ exhibition is a story about the modern world, its fragility. The world today akin to a crystal ball, one can admire it while holding it in one’s hands, but with only one careless movement it can get shattered into pieces. Today we live at a very difficult time where the fragility of relations is being tested every moment. Worlds which seemed unshakable before are now destroyed. An endless misunderstanding between people, countries, worlds.

We really wanted to remind all that, love, and love only, can changes things for the better. Only angels with their hearts filled with love towards the world, singing to us about the eternal and more importantly – love. Today, life has proven, no matter who you are, what race, religion, gender, economic class and profession you belong to, and no matter where and in which prosperous country in the world you live in, we are not sure that “tomorrow” will come. And the reason is political instability and threats of nuclear war in the world and new pandemic.

Venice is the place where it is necessary and possible to speak about unification, unity and peace. Venice has often been an example of the unification of East and West, together with Marco Polo and Venetian merchants, Venice opened routes to Asia and the Far East.

Time to drop all “differences” and unite! And only Angels will help us!

Angels have no gender, no race, no religion. Angeles are in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Yazidism, Zoroastrianism and so on. Angels have appeared in works of art since early Christian art, and they have been a popular subject for Byzantine and European paintings and sculpture.

All angels originate from the human race, and there is not one angel in heaven who first did not live in a material body. The life of angels is that of usefulness, and their functions are so many that they cannot be enumerated. However each angel will enter a service according to the use that they had performed in their earthly life. Angels in all religious was a servant of God who come to help people.

Following this project, your next exhibit was at Qatar International Art Festival, with the new collection titled ‘Laura. The Muse of Love’. Can you take us through your portrayal of love with this exhibition?

Laura is a mythical personage, she is the forerunner of love! Laura always appears unexpectedly in a person’s life, when they are not ready for it. Laura has wings, she transcends boarders with ease, and surpasses space and time. Only love has such power. When a person is in love, it becomes their source of happiness and magic.

Nationality and cultural heritage can influence art, whether visual or written. You were originally born in Georgia; has this ever had an effect on your work?

You absorb it from your very birth – the culture, the language, the traditions, whether you like them or not, they always exist inside you – you breathe them, you carry them within, they flow through your veins. However, to an artist, it is important to detach from them sometimes, embarking on one’s own personal journey in search for one’s artist self. And the further you sail away from them, the more profoundly you understand them.

You don’t have to be afraid of immersing yourself into new worlds with completely different rules and laws, a different genetic code – it is through the unknown that one can attain depth and lightness. It is a great happiness when the world unravels its treasures before you – the worlds of culture – you just need to reach out your hand to be able to touch them.

You spread the message of love through art, film and fashion, and have been named by Vogue as one of the top 20 emerging fashion designers. What do you think about the intersection of art and fashion? Is there a space for this collaboration?

In art, there are no boundaries between fashion, painting, and cinematography. It is a unified vessel, where emotions, aromas, colours are mixed together… The same way as there are no boundaries in love. Every time when you make art, you set off on a new adventure, filled with magic and sorcery. One thing flows into another. A line, colour, shape – which you search for in all three mediums – painting, fashion and film.

When you’re sat at the editing desk, the main point is to find a rhythm and a story, the same thing happens when you have canvases, brushes, and paints in your hands. Every time we tell the whole story, and it doesn’t matter how – through paintings, fashion, or film.

Your art work very much embodies a sense of cubism. Is this how you would describe your work? Who are your artistic influences?

I have a deeper understanding of figurative painting, I love to cross the brink between colour and line in order for something third to be born. When you listen to colour it can lead you far -far away, sometimes it’s important to switch your attention to the line, to hear its story. “To see the seen in the unseen. The infinity in the finiteness…”

In different phases of my creative path I fell in love with different artists, the could be so different, that it’s hard to list them altogether. But Picasso will always be the brightest and most favourite to me, he is my inspiration and love.

You’ve joined forces with art curator Ellen Nash for your two latest exhibitions. How did this collaboration begin? How you do work most effectively together to spread the message of love through art?

I met Ellen Nash this spring at my first exhibition in Venice. It was love at first sight. When you see a person and understand that you’ve known them and loved them for a long time. Ellen is amazing, light, and wonderful!!! A person, who inspires me and surpasses all boundaries, which might have seemed unbridgeable. I am incredibly thankful to destiny for this fateful encounter with her! Ellen is a person who changes time and space around them. I am very grateful for the magic she cultivates!