Alexander Tsikarishvili – shaman from art, the key medium of which is dirt, an artist interested in cultural mutation, a brilliant graphic artist and sculptor. The founder of the art association «North-7», the ideological mastermind, the rebel and a philosopher, omnivorous in techniques and materials: acrylic, clay, gypsum, cloth, garbage, dust, hair. Intentionally negligent, able to sculpt and draw anywhere and on anything, easily dealing with the elements and layers of textures. Figurative emerges under the layers of colorful giblets, clots of mud and tissue fibers in his works.

The «Altar» – is the key work by Tsikarishvili, absorbed all of the artist’s mythmaking. Complicated and radical in execution, referring to the key themes of the author – the image of the grandmother, the hero of our time, the village and its vanishing everyday life. It's almost a 3-meter composition, with a lined arch-framing, with a barely visible silhouette on its background. Formed out of dirt, the old woman's figure appears as an image of the Deesis tier on it, as a relic that was shown to the world. Deeply personal and timeless, it refers to the soil archetype, the fundamental beginning of all Russian history and identity, to art, removing layers, coarse outgrowths of artistic textures. Its power lies in the energy of material, – wood, clay, – in the power of a special substance of the texture itself. V