
The Horse that Led My Dad to Painting
The little boy he was,
Captured in a moment of sheer bliss
In innocence that would soon fade into
sentiment and ecstasy,
igniting a flame from which the heart breaks.
It was an unspoken world,
Hushed in secrecy, fear of the Turks.
Being Armenian had its aftermath of suffering
Threatening beyond belief.
The little boy who smiled for the camera;
holding back the tears because he knew his
inner world didn’t match the outer
But he remembers the night
his father drew him a simple drawing;
A man on a horse,
A lead pencil drawing imprinted for all eternity
An animated image seeped into his heart,
bursting forth a rainbow of love and longing
that he and his father both shared.
In the twilight of a tragic fallen world
where vision seems obscure, not opaque.
Yet Looking, Found a special place
His own.
A magical place of inner beauty.
This would mark the beginning
of the artist.
By Vanessa Avakian, October 2, 2006
Revised April 19, 2013
This monoprint (in background) exemplifies how far the use of paper-litho as a printmaking method has progressed in transferring photo images to paper. Genocide Hangings 2, above, is from a large scale series of work that was included in a one-person show called: LEST WE FORGET held at the Providence College, Hunt-Cavanagh Gallery in 2005. This powerful image of inhumanity was taken from a 1915 historical photo of a public hanging. It was digitally stylized, enlarged, cut into nine sections, inked as plates and then printed on BFK paper in a seamless undertaking. The small text of approximately 50-towns and cities were printed later.
The above monoprint is from FAMILY BIOGRAPHY series exhibited at the Attleboro Arts Museum. Previously FAMILY BIO 30 (not in photo) received Best of Show Award. These prints are a combination of family and historical photos. They were conceived to be spread out in an expansive horizontal format reminiscent of an ongoing epic of time beginning with genocidal horror more than 100 years ago. The aftermath of the 1915 Armenian Genocide continues through a timeless passing on to the next generation their legacy and history through protective silences, stories, secrets, anger, andnightmares.
This monotype/monoprint combination, CUPID ENTERS THE RUINS, was selected by Samuel Quigley, Director of the Lyman Allyn Art Museum for the 2017 National Exhibition of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club, New Haven, CT. This print is from a large group of experimental abstract prints using a variety of materials and tools. During this period figurative subjects were introduced into abstract settings as an integrative challenge —thus Cupid appears in this print— full of love, daring to enter a strange world of manifest ruins in hope of bringing some semblance of love for those devastated even if it's for a brief passing of time.
PORTRAIT OF INNOCENCE received Honorable Mention by Prof. Judith Brodsky, Rutgers University at the Duxbury Art Complex. This large scale provocative monoprint of innocence and mass murder is seamed together in a 9-part bleed monoprint printed on 42" h x 31" w BFK gray paper. The image depicts a naked toddler sitting cross-legged on a chair in a photo studio, unaware that in the background lies a heap of naked dead male Armenian male bodies flanked by Turkish soldiers based on a photo taken during Genocide of 1915.
This multilayered monoprint ACQUATIC UNIVERSE was awarded First Place by juror Christine Neil, Professor of Painting and Drawing, College of Art, Baltimore, MD. It is from Avakian's "experimental series" explores a complicated layering system of "ghosts", stencils, aluminum foil printings, and colors that reflect an amazing sense of unfathomable depth, aquatic translucence, and awesome beauty. On an psyhological level it expresses the allusive psychic world of the unconscious where memories and suppressed experiences live within the very being dept of the soul. Discovery remains the last hope for salvation and spiritual unity.
AN IMMIGRANTS SONG GOES UNHEARD was selected by the Judge of selection and Awards: Hollis Dunlap award winning CT. artist. It received the Weiss Sisters Prize for a Print and was included in the permanent collection of the NHP&CC. The print medium is unique and seldom utilized in such a distinguished way. The image is based on a photo taken of the artist's father seated in a upholstered chair after a hard days work and a warm evening dinner.
Education: BFA and MFA. Completed 38 semesters of monoprinting at the SMFA.
Awards: Received numerous awards and prizes for “printings on paper”. In 2016 received a lifetime honorary membership in the Monotype Guild of New England for many years of service.
Lectures and Outreach: Visiting critic, 2001, 2008 and 2009 in painting at Mass College of Art. In 2003 lectured at the University of the Arts on monoprinting and gave a demo on paper-litho transfer method, and also at Holy Cross College in 2005, and Wheaton College in 2017.
Publication: IF I BEGIN TO CRY is a 187-page catalog of Avakian's monoprints in full color with a critical essay by Todd Bartel on the Armenian Genocide Art and the paper-litho plate method of transferring images. Included also is a short play: THE PAST IS NOT THE PAST by playwright Elliot Baker, partially inspired by Avakian's life. His monoprints are in permanent collections of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club, the Boston and New York Public libraries, the Fogg Museum, and many private collections.
After many years of painting, in 1990 John made a major shift to printmaking, specifically monotypes and monoprints. His foray into this medium involved an intensive exploration of many traditional and non-traditional tools, papers, and materials expanding his skills and knowledge in this media. This combined with his design, drawing, and painting skills along with foundational preparation was essential for solving many visual and technical matters in the future. During this intense learning period Avakian's subject of interests expanded to include representational elements within abstract settings as an integrative challenge. A radical change soon followed in serious subject matter covering a wide range of subjects such as — sociopolitical, psychological, and existential. In 1992, Avakian began investigating a novel printing medium that proved to be very challenging in transferring images on a grand scale. This nethod happened to be fragile, and unpredictable that turned out to be imperfectly perfect for the look and feel of a new image evolving process.
Avakian became seriously interested in drawing and illustration while in high school. He admired the masterful story telling and painting technique of Norman Rockwell. During his latter years at the SMFA, he studied with the Belgian painter Jan Cox who had a strong influence on him. Avakian traveled to NY city to see Cox's Orpheus and Eurydice paintings at the Catherine Viviano Gallery. Jan Cox happened to be there, and consented to sit in front of his bewitching painting for a picture. In grad school, Alber's color course had a insightful effect on him while his paintings were considered "idiosyncratic" and he was judged to be "unteachable" by a NY abstract painter. His enrollment in Existential Philosophy, introduced him to the writtings of Heidegger, Husserl, Sartre, and others that opened his mind beyond what he could have imagined. Also his on-going interest in Gestalt psychology and C. G. Jung had a profound effect on him. After grad school, he read and was moved by the biography of Arshile Gorky* BLACK ANGEL where he found a soulful kinship and a virtual friend and mentor.
*See monoprint "Gorky & Me" under "Portraits" in slide show.
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