Tekla Khantadze is a fine artist and design business specialist currently working towards her Bachelor of Arts degree at Ringling College of Art and Design. She balances out her technical major of Business of Art and Design by minoring in Fine Arts. 

 

This unexpected dichotomy between something as rigid as business and as pliable as fine arts has been a part of Tekla’s life since the early days. She started taking her creative side seriously in high school where she received awards for two of her paintings that were later exhibited overseas. The art department recognized her as the best in the class that year. It was with these accomplishments that she felt confident looking towards the art world for a future occupation. However, she recognized the need for an additional backbone onto which to build a career. Ringling’s business program perfectly combined her love for the free-flowing nature of art and the reliability of a business understanding. 

 

While in her major she explores roles such as project manager, brand strategist, and marketing director, her minor allows for the release of creative tension through the tangible art of printmaking. Her personal work is even further stripped down to just a pen and paper that follow her momentary inspirations as they itch to be thwarted out into the physical world at once before they disappear.

 

Being involved with two opposing fields of the art and design industry means having a vastly different approach when it comes to each of them. The work she does with marketing, branding, and project management requires extensive planning and finely calculated schedules and worktimes to reach a successful final product. 

 

This is completely antonymous to her workflow when it comes to fine art. Ideally, there is absolutely no planning involved and the pure energy of the moment can be transferred from the mind onto paper, similar to how an ink block print leaves behind a mirror reflection of what is etched onto its surface. 

 

Aside from Tekla’s professional interests, she enjoys the arts of music and tattooing in her personal life. She has been teaching herself the guitar for 2 years and is slowly starting to synthesize her goals when it comes to music. She wants to write music and one day perform in front of an audience. Even though this is not her main goal currently, she is taking small steps towards these dream-like desires nonetheless. 

 

In addition to music, she is also a training tattoo artist. Having completed a short-term apprenticeship, she occasionally finds the time to practice her art on friends. This is a skill that Tekla wants to develop and stand out in, bringing her unique pen and ink style to the world of tattooing. 

 

More of her work can be found on her Behance, LinkedIn, and Instagram pages linked below.