Teona Yamanidze is an NY based Georgian artist. In 2005 she moved to Tbilisi, Georgia and obtained her BFA degree in Visual arts from the state academy of Fine Arts in Georgia. In 2008 she took an interest to print journalism due to the Russian Georgian war that took place in August of that year and remained an active participant of the association of young journalists for the newspaper where she wrote articles about art. Political and press censorship in Russia during the conflict banned all opinions and material about the current political situation. In 2011 Teona left the newspaper and returned to painting.The same year she was awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant from Canada and Research Scholarship from the Ministry of Culture in Georgia that gave her an opportunity to study in London University of Arts. While obtaining her postgraduate degree she became deeply invested in using documentary photos from hostilities. Her final degree show was concerned with the unknown facts from the 2008 war in Georgia. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, including Winzavod Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, Berlin International Art Week, and Mars center for contemporary culture in Moscow. She is currently involved in a project with the Everson Museum for Contemporary Art titled “That Day Now: Shadows Cast by Hiroshima” devoted to the 70 year anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. She has been an artist, creating show-specific artwork as well as a curator and researcher within the archives of the Museum in preparation for the exhibit.

Teona is a recipient of the Edmund S. Muskie Fellowship'17 for young leaders and is currently a Fulbright scholar obtaining her MFA in Studio Arts at Syracuse University, College of visual and performing arts.