Artist Statement

I consider it a gift when you are given the means to express yourself and the biggest prize is that your work can evoke an emotional response from a viewer.
The camera is my precious friend letting me tell the stories. My own stories coming from my passion and love for life, from gratitude that I can see, hear and feel all around me.

I was born and grew up in a country with a thousand years of ancient history. A country of ancient temples and medieval churches nestled on top of mountains and scattered all over the land, the country of small villages lost in seemingly eternal fog and forgotten narrow roads crisscrossing the mountains, the people with endless hospitality and hard life. The country called Armenia.

The country's particular palette of colours, the curved shapes of its mountains, the crisp air of the highlands and the haze over the plains shaped my vision and continue to influence my work today.

For me it is a vision based on accumulated life experiences and knowledge, an exploration of Elements, Light and Impression; the real voyage of discovery through geometry with ideas of zen - the familiar seen from an unexpected angle - creates a completely original composition where simple objects become powerful graphic statements. It is an exploration of Expressionism and Abstract Expressionism in photography, visualization of endless versions of reality, the mystery of space, lines, fragments, and colour. Most importantly it is a quest for light that creates a metamorphosis of the place where things don’t exist.

As an artist, the biggest challenge is to overcome the superficial power of the subject, to break through the tyranny of the obvious. We see what we are encouraged to see. I strive to see past the superficial dictate of our cognition; to cast away the illusion of the mundane; to break away from the accompanying vision of the routine; to unite the polar opposites of cognitive and emotional functions of our being; in other words, to see the unseen.

URBAN FIGURATION
We perceive the world in linear perspective, with lines, surfaces, right angles and orthogonal structures. What is there beyond the manifest form? Our imagination is our drive forward. Elements, Light, Perception and Impression create a transition from a concrete obvious to a more formal, abstract level.
This is an exploration beyond the external form to find an inner beauty, the stories beyond cold structures. To portray two-dimensional representation of 3 dimensional realities in different types of spaces that suggests a perception of higher dimensional existence.

URBAN DWELING
Enclosed in concrete, seeking safety yet oblivious to our disappearing environment.
What is our relation with nature? Are we the alienated observers instead of part of it? Poking nature’s balance then retreating in our modern concrete caves under the blanket of illusion of safety. We arbitrarily interfere with its delicate balance, depriving ourselves from what sustains our own existence. Have we gone too far?