In A New Star Rising (2019) the Georgian painter Rusudan Khizanishvili, enmeshes the traditional mother and child theme with other archetypes—the dizzyingly colorful elements of folk art, the unrestrained forms of expressionism. 

Here, the literally golden child and his blue-haired mother are still front and center, because motherhood, to Khizanishvili, is sacred, serious, just like the looks on their faces. 

But there’s a looseness to the relationship, too. They’re a part of the fabric of the natural world, which is vibrant...except, that is, for the shadowy figure behind them, who may just be there to remind us that wherever there’s light and beauty, there tends to be darkness, too.