Atom Hovhanesyan, gallery


Atom Hovhanesyan, (1981-2018) As a faithful and respectful learner, then successor of legendary master’s vision, style and performance, loved very much traditional choice of medium and ground his own colors. And after colossal dedication to art, some times, 72 hours nonstop painting or drawing, unintentionally or maybe subconsciously created unique, unrepeatable style and technique in post divisionism and ink drawings, never observed before. Below, are Atom’s own understanding and description of his art works in these particular two styles: “Through Division to Expression” Influenced by post impressionism with cubist approach to composition. The goal here is to utilize the whole surface of the support challenging the viewer’s perception of negative space. Essentially divisionist, the figure/composition is woven in to the fabric of the plane and space warps in to the figure. In the painting process repetitive almost automatic application of the crosshatched lines allows the subconscious the opportunity to direct the composition, there is a tension between the desire to hide vs. the need to reveal, conflict between subconscious and self-conscious. Drawings in ink: Worked with ink with the same approach, because of the fine lines unique to this medium and the texture that arises from multiple built up layers of cross hatched lines allowed me to focus on light and texture and the feel of the drawings ended up being quite different from the paintings. “LINE, PATTERN IN CHAOS” Ink drawings. The seemingly chaotic application of lines ( cross hatches) is intentional, I'm trying to follow in line of the post divisionist paintings, creating a unified fabric of the plane, modeling with parallel hatch marks would go against this, and would make it more of a plastic approach, and would emphasize the distinction of background foreground. In short I'm trying to arrive at impressionistic use of ink as the medium with surreal or symbolic mindset.