“There is one thing we all have in common, No matter what your skin color, religious beliefs, or sexual prefeerence is. What unites us is our IGNORANCE.” With unfiltered language and life style, Shalva Nikvashvili was born in Giorgia and left it soon after, to find a voice that makes you think, re-evaluate and know the underground aspects of the reality that we all often chose to brush aside and have the willingness to accept.

Shalva, In your BEFORE I DIE LIST: You mentioned the memoir which you think would be shocking to a therapist. Please talk of those shocks you meant there (even if it's for a brief).

To briefly tell you, will be complicated to put my 32 years of experiences in two sentences, well I grew up in a highly homophobic country and family, everything was forbidden, so I escaped from Georgia and ended up in a relationship that almost brought me to point where I considered on committing suicide. After that, because of endless abuse including sexual abuse, I also arranged to come out of this dark hole and ended up on the streets where I did not know anyone, I was almost 3 years fighting for my rights to stay in Europe, without being allowed to work or do anything, made my life miserable but at the same time inspired me to don’t stop what I was always doing: to create Art where I would manifest everything I wanted to say to the world.

It's a no-brainer your work has a provocative look at first sight. What do you think of your senses and their role in the current phase of your life? Do you see yourself as immune to what people call uncomfortable?

I don’t care and never cared what people thought about me or about my art, people want to put labels on everything because its easy to understand, I don’t like to explain my work because I find it boring to talk about things that u can’t explain, it's all about what does it make u feel like? think about that and maybe people will understand more not only about my work but generally about the world we live in.

What does the human body mean to you? What lures you to play around with this respective subject as conduct?

The human body is like a balloon, u can blow it up or with one small needle u can make it explode, I am obsessed with wanting to understand the human identity, and how great performers we all are but not everyone gets Oscars.

You talked about your failed marriage along with your inclination for deeper introspection and reflection on life. What are your common realizations about the human species? Are we doomed or wee have hope left?

I am not, in general, a very optimistic person because I rather face the reality than sit on pink clouds and chew chewing gum, I think the more time goes people get even madder, a mad society is a key to exploding and that’s what we see every day.

I'd like to know your thoughts on the “sense of identity” that you have touched through your work in a wholesome amount. Do you think most humans are blinded by their sense of self? How would you define your very own sense of self? Through all the changes you have gone through what has stayed?

Identity is something that shapes every day, if u break ur nose every day it becomes misshaped right ? so that’s what happens to our identities as well, every experience makes us better or worst human beings, unfortunately, all I see is only self-love in these days, which is great !!! we all have to respect and love ourselves, but let's not forget that we are just small creatures running and screaming around, sometimes we need to stop about ME ME ME ME ME thinking and think about nature.

LGBTQA+ community means a lot to you and must mean to all. The emotional upheaval that people have gone through is unimaginable. Your work empowers people and is loud. Is this a crying rage against the system or the complexity of life on earth?

Being an unorthodox gay visual artist is very complicated to find a place where u can show ur works next to the ‘ intelligent ‘ establishment, I fight for people who are called weird and unwelcomed in public, I fight to make people understand that beauty does not exist, I want to make people sometimes very angry because I believe anger is the key to change things.

I recently spoke to a trans woman from Canada who is a dominatrix, and she told me about the way she struggles to just survive. What future do you imagine to be in the coming years around the subject of sex and freedom in our society?

Everyone has to be free and do whatever they want to do, acceptance comes in the first place, and with this acceptance of yourself, u can make others accept you.

Last but not least how do you keep calm in the chaos? What your therapeutic or healing ritual looks like?

I take my 4 dogs to the forest to walk, taking showers sometimes for 30 min because I believe water can take a lot not only from our bodies but also from our minds.