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  • BACKGROUND
  • MEANDERINGS
  • CENTRALIZATIONS
  • ABSTRACTIONS
  • PORTRAITS
  • PSYCHOSYMMETRIES
  • SOCIOPOLITICAL
  • FAMILY BIOGRAPHY
  • ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
  • SOLITARY MOMENTS
  • CONTACT ME
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    • BACKGROUND
    • MEANDERINGS
    • CENTRALIZATIONS
    • ABSTRACTIONS
    • PORTRAITS
    • PSYCHOSYMMETRIES
    • SOCIOPOLITICAL
    • FAMILY BIOGRAPHY
    • ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
    • SOLITARY MOMENTS
    • CONTACT ME
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  • BACKGROUND
  • MEANDERINGS
  • CENTRALIZATIONS
  • ABSTRACTIONS
  • PORTRAITS
  • PSYCHOSYMMETRIES
  • SOCIOPOLITICAL
  • FAMILY BIOGRAPHY
  • ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
  • SOLITARY MOMENTS
  • CONTACT ME

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vibrant Works on paper: Monoprints that capture the essence of life

vibrant Works on paper: Monoprints that capture the essence of lifevibrant Works on paper: Monoprints that capture the essence of lifevibrant Works on paper: Monoprints that capture the essence of life
WELCOME TO MY ONLINE ART PORTFOLIO: I AM AN ARTIST WHO SPECIALIZES IN MODERN ART, WHICH INCLUDES CONTEMPORARY ART. MY PASSION FOR ART HAS DRIVEN ME TO CREATE UNIQUE PIECES THAT ARE SURE TO CATCH YOUR EYE. HERE, YOU CAN EXPLORE MY MONOPRINTS, MONOTYPES AND MIXED MEDIA ART. IF YOU ARE LOOKING TO ADD A TOUCH OF SOPHISTICATION TO YOUR HOME OR OFFICE, OR SIMPLY WANT TO ADMIRE SOME BEAUTIFUL ART, YOU HAVE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO BROWSE MY PORTFOLIO AND AND GET IN TOUCH WITH ME IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS. THANK YOU FOR VISITING!

Who is John Avakian?

The Horse that Led My Dad to Painting

 Vanessa Avakian, October 2, 2006

Revised April 19, 2013

The little boy he was,

Captured in a moment of sheer bliss and 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.


To This Bond So Rare

David Avakian, December 29, 2023

In the realm of colors,

where life's canvas unfolds

A father and artist, their stories are told.

John, the creator, with brush and a dream.

Through the years they've traveled hand in hand.

A father and artist, a dedication that's grand.

The canvas of life, filled with memories

 and reflections.

For John, Vanessa and Dave, 

on this day so dear,

 we celebrate the love that has brought us all here.

For the warmth of their hearts, 

for the family and art that they share, 

We raise our glasses high, to this bond so rare.

There's more ... continue scrolling down for Background, Medium, and Influencess.

Background: AN art Odyssey

BACKGROUND

BACKGROUND

BACKGROUND

Education:  Received BFA and MFA degrees, and  a four-year diploma with honors from the SMFA. Also Completed 38 semesters of monoprinting in Continuing Ed at the SMFA

. 

Awards: Numerous  prizes recevied for “printings on paper”. Awarded Traveling Scholarship from the SMFA in 1969 for travel to Paris and England.  In 1970 Avakian was awarded a scholarship for research in creative art from the Blanche E. Colman Foundation.  In 2016 he received a lifetime honorary membership from the Monotype Guild of New England for many years of service.

 

Lectures: 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 a demo on paper-litho transfer, and also at Holy Cross College in 2005, and Wheaton College in 2017. 

Publications: IF I BEGIN TO CRY is a 187-page catalog on 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 printing 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.

MEDIUM

BACKGROUND

BACKGROUND

After many years of exile from painting and teaching, in 1990 Avakian made a life saving shift to printmaking, specifically monotypes and monoprints. His foray into this medium necessitated an intensive exploration of traditional and non-traditional methods, tools, such as papers, and found materials that expanded his skills and knowledge. Alone with this acquisition combined with Avakian's   painting skills, color and compositional acumen resulted in having a solid background of experience and technical ability to solve many printmaking issues in the years ahead. e During this intense period of time, Avakian's explorative interest began with abstract visual elements that eventually included representational subjects such as human figures in abstract settings as an integrative challenge. From then on,, a radical change took place that included serious issues of content such as sociopolitical, psychological, and existential.

 

In 1992, Avakian came across a novel plate-making method introduced in the 20th century called paper-litho. that utilized Ixerographic printing technology and imaging software.  This  paper-litho method turned out to be a quirky process, but due to circumstances suited his printmaking vision for the future.


 Unfortunately paper-litho has not reached the status that traditional methods havel as a bonafide printing method by raditional printing methods such as woodcut, etching, mezzotint to mention a few.


The paper-litho medium became a long term mission for Avakian and a long standing passion and vision for his own work. His attitude is a perfect match to meet the unexpected appearances  of fragility, inconsistency, and unpredictability: all of which seemed to be an uncooperative paper-litho printmaking process.   



INFlUENCES

BACKGROUND

INFlUENCES

Avakian became seriously interested in drawing during his early grammer school years when his father drew him a horse with a rider. This moment began a bond of love for Avakian. In the latter years of grammer school he  admired the masterful story telling and painting technique of Norman Rockwell. During his high school years he was mentored by Lincoln Levinson his art teacher. For his dedication as an art student he was awarded  5-gold keys;  for photography, drawing, and painting. At the SMFA, he studied with the Belgian painter Jan Cox  who's paintings had a strong influence on him. Avakian traveled to NY city to see Cox's bewitching Orpheus and Eurydice paintings at the Catherine Viviano Gallery. Jan Cox happened to be there, and  was willing to sit in front of his his large-scale painting for a historical snapshot.  In grad school, Alber's color course had a powerful effect him, while his paintings in class were considered "idiosyncratic" and he was harsly judged to be "unteachable" by an abstract painter from New York. His enrollment in Existential Philosophy, introduced him to the writtings of Heidegger, Husserl, Sartre, and others that opened his mind in a wonderous way beyond anything he could have imagined. Also his on-going interest in design brought him in contact with Gestalt psychology, and the interior world of the psyche, and C. G. Jung whose writtings had a profound influence on him. After grad school, Avakian read the biography BLACK ANGEL: A Life of Arshile Gorky.  In the life of Gorky, Avakian found a soulful kinship with Gorky's existential challenges,  multiple losses, abject lonliness and despair that finally drove him to take his life. Gorky lives on in spirit.

 

*See monoprint "Gorky & Me" under "Portraits" in slide show.

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE EXHIBIT 2005

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE EXHIBIT 2005

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE EXHIBIT 2005

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 monoprint (in the background) exemplifies the potentiality of paper-litho method, and how far it   has progressed in transferring images of large-scale to paper.  This powerful image of inhumanity was sourced from a 1915 historical photo of a public hanging. It was digitally stylized, enlarged, inked, and printed on BFK paper in a seamless undertaking. The small text of approximately 50 towns was printed later.

FAMILY BIOGRAPHY EXHIBIT 2014

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE EXHIBIT 2005

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE EXHIBIT 2005

Family of Intergenerational trauma

The above monoprint is from the FAMILY BIOGRAPHY series exhibited at the Attleboro Arts Museum. Previously FAMILY BIO 30 (not in photo) received the Best of Show Award. These prints are a combination of family and historical photos. It was 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, and nightmares.

PAINT & CLAY CLUB EXHIBIT 2017

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE EXHIBIT 2005

MGNE - Fifth National Juried Exhibit 2018

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 experimentations with a variety of materials and tools. Figurative subjects were also 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 to those devastated, even if it's for a brief passing of time.

MGNE - Fifth National Juried Exhibit 2018

120th Paint & Clay Club Juried Art Exhibition 2021

MGNE - Fifth National Juried Exhibit 2018

PORTRAIT OF INNOCENCE received Honorable Mention by Prof. Judith Brodsky, Rutgers University at th

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 the Genocide of 1915. 

About Monotypes and Monoprints

120th Paint & Clay Club Juried Art Exhibition 2021

120th Paint & Clay Club Juried Art Exhibition 2021

Monotypes and Monoprints is an artist specializing in monotypes and monoprints. With a passion for printmaking, Monotypes and Monoprints creates unique and expressive artwork that captures the beauty of spontaneous creation. Each piece reflects a blend of skill and creativity, inviting viewers to explore new dimensions in art.

120th Paint & Clay Club Juried Art Exhibition 2021

120th Paint & Clay Club Juried Art Exhibition 2021

120th Paint & Clay Club Juried Art Exhibition 2021

AN IMMIGRANT'S SONG GOES UNHEARD selected by the Judge of selection and Awards: Hollis Dunlap. This monoprint received the Weiss Sisters Prize for printmaking, and  purchased for the permanent collection of the NHP&CC. The printing medium is paper-litho that is seldom utilized in any distinguished way. The image is from a photo of the artist's father, who survived the Armenian Genocide, and held on to the dream of going back to his place of birth.  

Copyright © 2018 Monotypes and Monoprints - All Rights Reserved.

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