Levan Songulashvili wins People’s Choice for artwork at NY display

New York-based artist Levan Songulashvili was honoured at the city’s annual Black & White National Juried Art Exhibition with a People’s Choice award for his work exhibited at the event.

Songulashvili’s piece Portrait was picked for the prize with a popular vote that placed the Georgian among a group of award-winners and certificate recipients of the exhibition.

The artwork was recognised following a voting involving invited artists, art critics and members of the organising Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC) art society.

‘The Styx 2 — Child’. Oil, acrylic on canvas. Photo: courtesy of the artist.

The oil and acrylic work, from Songulashvili’s project THE STYX, had been picked as one of 110 pieces featured in the display from submissions by over 1,100 United States-based artists.

Curated by Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Alison Hokanson, the selected pieces went on display during the annual event that opened on July 29 and ran through August 20.

This year’ Black & White National Juried Art Exhibition featured works aimed at exploring the sense of human perception and survival.

The display is organised by BWAC, an organisation run by over 400 established and emerging artists.

Hosting three shows annually, BWAC boasts an art gallery in a US Civil War-era warehouse building in New York that hosts over 18,000 visitors every year.

Born in Georgia, Songulashvili moved to the US in 2014 for studies at the New York Academy of Art. While at the academy he received the Scholar Merit Award, founded by the famous 20th century artist Andy Warhol.

In 2015 Songulashvili won the academy’s prestigious Portrait Scholarship Award, becoming the first Georgian artist to do so. His works also featured at the academy’s annual Tribeca Ball in 2016.