Biography

Georgian-American artist Nana Bagdavadze is widely known for her paintings of symbolic DNA molecule structures as well as for her figurative art and portraiture. Her works are included in numerous permanent collections around the world including at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the National Library of Georgia, the University of Kansas, the Swedish Cancer Institute, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the National Institute of Municipal Law Officers, Government Center of Oregon, and many private collections like Samuel & Althea Stroum, Katherine & Harriet Bullitt, John & Julie Gottman, Frances Sellers Collins & Diana Baker, Delphine & Charles Stevens, Paul W. Skinner of Skinner Foundation, to name a few.

Bagdavadze has taught painting at the Seattle Art Museum, Frye Art Museum, Pratt Fine Art Center, Bellevue Art Museum, University of Washington Experimental College, and Hill Center at Old Naval Hospital, and has conducted masterclasses and workshops in the United States and Europe.

A board member of the Washington, DC based international Art4US group, and a member of the Welcome to Washington International Women’s Club, she has curated numerous exhibits including “Beauty will Save the World” at the Arts Club of Washington in the historic Monroe House. In her native country of Georgia, she is developing a cross-disciplinary platform to create a dialogue between various fields of the arts and science for the Caucasus region and beyond.

Nana Bagdavadze earned her MFA degree in painting and pedagogy at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tbilisi, Georgia, where she also taught for several years before moving to the United States in 1990. She was granted permanent residency as an “Outstanding Artist” and became a US citizen in 1999. Based in Washington DC, Nana Bagdavadze frequently travels for exhibits, commissions, and special projects in the United States and Europe.

TESTIMONIALS 

“Nana Bagdavadze, originally from Georgia, makes paintings and hand-finished prints of DNA double helixes that are inspired by having been a bone-marrow donor for her sister. Rather than dryly scientific, the pictures are vivid and sensuous, depicting spirals of glossy orbs that glisten like pearls or caviar.”

Mark Jenkins, The Washington Post

“The way she represents DNA makes it so alive, so glowing, so intriguing, so mysterious, and I think all of those things are true”.

Francis S. Collins, Director of NIH and the Human Genome Project

 “The more we look at these remarkable images, the more they evoke simultaneously the unfathomed question of our genuine human identity and the answer to that question that lies in the creative human spirit which brings together true science and true art.”

Jacob Needleman, Professor Emeritus at SFSU, Author

“An artist discovers her visual icon in life-or-death moment”

Ivan Amato, Chemical & Engineering News, Author

“Looking at Nana Bagdavadze’s paintings of DNA leads me to deep and perhaps perilous consideration of who we are…The series begin with the search for the recognizable particles of life and light, and the magic that links us to the building blocks of creativity”

Jim Magner, Capitol Community News

“For Nana Bagdavadze, art doesn't merely mirror life, it describes her soul.”

Keith Raether, Tacoma News Tribune

“Simultaneously abstract and concrete, Nana Bagdavadze’s paintings gift us with arresting tapestries of form and color that enter us through our eyes yet but then infiltrate us down to our deepest cellular and molecular realities. Moved by the wondrous minutiae of our materiality and the vastness of our spirituality, Nana invites an important multilogue of art, science and humanity.”

From the article: “ Nana’s Nanovisions” Chemical & Engineering News magazine, July 21, 2008, by Ivan Amato, author of “Super Vision: A new view of nature.”

“Nana Bagdavadze’s portraits live inside out. They are not of the human skin, the human veneer. They go deeper into the layers of living personality…”

From the article “Artist Portrait: Nana Bagdavadze”, Capitol Community News, May 2009

“Not only is she highly trained and talented as a painter but her work is heartfelt. This is the quality that distinguishes artwork that endures over time from that which is merely technically proficient.”

Lynn Basa | Director, Art Program
University of Washington Medical Center

“As a portrait artist, Nana is certainly a pre-eminent talent whose abilities deserve the recognition she is receiving in the United States and abroad.”
Irene Mahler
Mahler Fine Arts Consulting

“Nana Bagdavadze is an exceptional artist who captured the spirit of my family in life size painting. Nana's vivid interpretation of our family's relationship to each other is well portrayed in a beautiful pose, which shows the depth of her understanding of personalities and unique characteristics.”
Hal Smith
President, ERNST Corporation

“Nana captured the spirit of my children in a setting we all love, and did it in a style I was proud to have in our home. She is a friend, and a fine artist.”
Jean Enersen
King 5 Television