Vasil Berela

Vasil Berela was born in Gori, Georgia, and grew up in an environment shaped by the aftershocks of the post Soviet era. Collapsing structures, political unrest, and the long shadow of the civil war characterized this time. These early experiences are deeply inscribed in his thinking and continue to form an invisible resonance space in his artistic work today.

In his works, inner landscapes open up, places of retreat and escape. They are simultaneously searching movements of the soul: tentative attempts to reach a state beyond the visible, a moment of transcendence where memory, pain, and hope merge. But while the soul reaches for such threshold states, the body remains vulnerable, permeable, and exposed to the influences of the world. This tension between inner dissolution and outer vulnerability forms a core of his oeuvre.

Following the war in his hometown in 2008, Berela fled to Germany. He has been living and working in Berlin since 2011.

Solo Exhibitions

  • 2025
  • Crash me, but gently, Galerie Met, Berlin, Germany
  • 2024
  • Transcendental Pathogen, BBA Gallery, Berlin, Germany
  • 2023
  • Mirror Mirror, Weserhalle, Berlin, Germany
  • Backshop Project, Culterim, Berlin, Germany
  • 2012
  • Georgia Berlin Gallery, Berlin, Germany
  • 2011
  • Eigen-Art Gallery (RheineKunst), Rheine, Germany

Group Exhibitions (Selection)

  • 2025
  • The darkness is coming, Berlin, Germany
  • This is not a Fact 48 Stunde Neukölln, Berlin, Germany
  • 2024
  • 0 Nichts, Zeit ist Knapp, Berlin, Germany
  • Habitat, Stadtwerkstatt Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany
  • 2023
  • Luftgrenzen, KA32, Berlin, Germany
  • Al Dente, group exhibition, Berlin, Germany
  • Tumult, Diploma Exhibition Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • Monochrome, SLP Galerie, Berlin, Germany
  • 2022
  • No sex with robots, Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, Berlin, Germany
  • International art exhibition NordArt, Büdelsdorf, Germany
  • 2021
  • Kühlhaus, Berlin, Germany
  • International art exhibition NordArt, Büdelsdorf, Germany
  • 2019
  • Kunstpunkt Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • 2018
  • Greenhaus, Berlin, Germany
  • 2017
  • Greenhaus, Berlin, Germany
  • 2016
  • Berlin-Weißensee School of Art, Berlin, Germany
  • 2014
  • Iberart Gallery, Berlin, Germany
  • 2012
  • Georgia Berlin Gallery, Berlin, Germany
  • 2010
  • Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
  • 2008
  • Theological Seminary, Gori, Georgia

Awards & Grants

  • 2018
  • Scholarship holder of the Mart Stam Foundation

Education

  • 2015–2023 Weißensee Kunsthochschule, Bildhauerei/Freie Kunst, Berlin, Germany
  • 2003–2004 Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, Architecture, Tbilisi, Georgia
  • 1993–2003 Private studio Nugzar Jojuashvili, Gori, Georgia
  • 1996–1999 Anna Peradze Art School, Gori, Georgia