ROCKPORT — Showing at the Messler Gallery in Rockport at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship is the work of 41-year-old artist Gigi Aea. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Aea published his first painting on the cover of the European children’s magazine Dila at the age of 6. He has since created one-of-a-kind design for Mary McFadden, Oscar de la Renta and Alexander McQueen.

Aea earned a Bachelor of Arts at the Nikoladze College of Fine Arts in Tblisi. During this time he was invited to pursue a Master of Fine Art at the Hochschule fur Kunste in Bremen, Germany.

Upon completion, his talent was recognized by fashion designer McFadden, and he was asked to join her House of Haute Couture as a hand paint designer. Under the label Mary McFadden Inc., Aea produced a number of best-selling designs and his hand paints have been worn by Hillary Clinton, Dolly Parton, Sandra Bernhard, Princess Romanoff and others.

Throughout the years Aea pursued different facets of painting, experimenting with various surfaces and application processes. To pursue his career in fine art he retired from the haute couture industry at the age of 27. His explorations led him to the Southwestern United States, the Pacific Northwest, Berlin, Germany and London in the U.K. He currently lives in Camden. His work has been exhibited in galleries in the U.S. and Europe. Penobscot Bay Pilot spent a few minutes with Aea at Saturdays exhibition.

You’re Russian by descent?

“No, not Russian, I’m Georgian by descent. There’s a great big difference between being Georgian and Russian. Georgia was part of the Soviet Union, because Russia controlled it for 75 years, as it did 15 other countries. Georgia is 5,000 years old as a country and goes back a very long time. Do you know the story of the Golden Fleece? The Golden Fleece was actually in Georgia.”

You are a fourth generation painter?

 “Actually I’m a third generation painter, but a fourth generation artist. My great-grandfather was the first photographer in Georgia. Because of that he got quite wealthy, but unfortunately he got sabotaged and his studio was burned down and we lost all those photographs — but his legacy lives on. My grandfather was a cubist painter in Paris and hung out with Picasso and the likes, and my father is a painter in Berlin. I consider myself to be the bearer of the torch.”

When did you come to the United States?

“I came to the United States in May of 1995 and I was an illegal alien for maybe six months. It had always been my dream to come to New York, since I was 12 years old. I came to New York with $500, which was taken away from me by some hustler the next day, so I had no money and I started doing odd jobs and dead end jobs until I got the living that I needed by accident, by shear luck actually. I started working in haute couture, which is the fashion business, and I went to work for Mary McFadden and I’ve done designs for Oscar de la Renta as well. I moved to London, maybe 0 years afterwards, and designed for Alexander McQueen, so the textile business came in very handy in terms of the medium that I use now, which means painting on silk with silk dyes by hand. Everything was done as a one-of-a-kind and not printed. Haute couture means done per client.”

You’ve lived in America, Britain and Germany. Which country had the greatest influence on your work?

“The United States by far. Everything that I’ve done, everything that’s my inspiration is because of the juxtaposition of everything that comes in colors in this beautiful land. There are so many trials and tribulations and disagreements that we have as human beings, there are so many inspirational factors. There are so many great things to look forward to; it’s such a land of opportunity.”

What brought you to Camden?

“At the time I resided in Portland, Oregon, and the West Coast was just not my cup of tea. I am very much an East Coaster and I longed to be close to New York and that East Coast mentality. A lot of people in New York talk about Maine. My girlfriend was from Maine and we decided to come back to Maine and it was a great opportunity. I love it; I love the colors, the clarity of light that Maine has had a great impact on me as an artist. And I suspect that one of the reasons Maine has such a great artistic community is because of that color and the beauty that it offers. It was a lucky thing for me to experience and to express it in my work.”

Of any of the pieces of work that are on the wall, how long does it take to create it?

 “That’s a very good question and a question that has been asked of me a lot in my life and in very different ways. My best reply is to say it took me all my life, because to get to this point where I can paint this, it takes all the time in the world — all the education, all the passion, all the patience to do one brush stroke that you do, that’s how long it took, because it might take one minute to make that brush stroke, but it took me a lifetime to master it. Whether it be a scarf, or a curtain, or a couch, or a painting — it took a lifetime to get to that point.”

Mary McFadden was a very famous woman in her own right and very influential in the fashion world. What was it like to work for her?

“She was definitely a woman that I am eternally grateful to for giving me a chance and seeing my talent. She immediately recognized the ability that I have. It’s a for-profit business, obviously, but I think it’s a very American way to communicate. Working for her was one of the greatest experiences of my life because I was allowed in that field, total freedom, as much freedom as anyone could wish for. If you know anything at all about that field [haute couture] there’s a lot of backstabbing and politics. And she wasn’t a newbie. She had run the house for a couple of decades before she took me in and she related to me in a very open hearted, very trusting way. I was basically the guy that designed textiles for her future collections. I had very few feuds inside the agency. It was a very democratic company, not autocratic at all and one of the greatest experiences of my life.”

In closing, would you care to make a comment in general about your life, your work — or whatever you’d like to say?

“Well, in general, I just finished my wine, so I think I better refill my glass and get you a glass too, to give me time to think for a minute [interject short pause, then a toast and clinking of glasses]. All the time I express my dreams. And I think we vacillate between the known and unknown realities, imagined realities.  I don’t try to highlight one over the other; I think they are highlighted for us. I think I see my life as a perpetual adventure between those two. Lately I try to show a lot of respect for my grandparents who have influenced me a great deal. My grandfather was a painter and my grandmother was a ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet and then a teacher at the university and then a dean. They taught me how to articulate my feelings, how to articulate my love for the world. I think my life is all about being able to overcome things and I draw my inspiration from that. I think painting draws its inspiration from different things then, for example, music. Music can come a lot from anger, but not a lot of painting comes from anger. I have my love for the world and my love for the people around me and that is where I draw my inspiration.”