John Dodelande

Founder

John Dodelande is a prolific businessman and collector. An entrepreneur since his twenties, his first ventures were in the fashion and textiles. Dodelande subsequently invested in agricultural land in the Caucasus region, where he diversified into food-processing.

He created a base in the republic of Georgia, where his latest ambitious project is to create modern real-estate - hotels, gas stations, parking and restaurants. In 2013, the President of Georgia granted Dodelande Georgian citizenship for exceptional services to the country.

Dodelande's career as a collector has developed in parallel with his business activities. He travelled to China early on in his career, and became deeply interested in that country's ancient and much misunderstood visual culture. He began to collect works by Chineses artists of the post-Mac generation, the cohort that came to maturity in the 1980s and after. These artists were witnesses of the transformation of China - the super-rapid modernisation, the explosive economic growth, the opening of borders - and they have explored its human effects in their art. Some of those artists use or adapt traditional means such as ink or oils, others have enthusiastically embraced conceptual art and new media.