Atom Hovhanesyan

“Post-Impressionist, Cubist, Futurist, and Abstract Expressionist’s color theory, optics, and composition heavily influenced my Post Divisionist style and technique. I developed and refined my Post-Divisionist style and technique in a series of paintings of women and landscapes.”

Study after Giorgione's Sleeping Venus - Oil on canvas 30 x 48 x 1.5 in.

Atom Hovhanesyan was a self-taught artist that worked and lived in New York. He was born in Armenia on August 19, 1981. In 1997, just as Atom graduated from high school at age 16, his family received final Embassy approval for immigration to the United States. That same year Atom enrolled at New York University to study English and began a part-time job at a national restaurant chain. In 1998, Atom applied and was accepted at St. John’s University where he studied Economics while continuing to work in the restaurant industry where he excelled and quickly moved into key management positions in both the New York and Los Angeles restaurant market. Atom relocated from Los Angeles to New York in 2009 and began painting- the passion of his childhood and youth.

From that point, his entire life was dedicated to art. A considered and methodical autodidact, he busied himself with the study of anatomy, perspective, effects of light, color theory, art history, and the works of the Old Masters and the Modern Masters.

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, sometimes, 72 hours of nonstop painting or drawing, unintentionally or maybe subconsciously created unique, unrepeatable style and technique in post divisionism and ink drawings, never observed before.

"My goal was to utilize the entire surface of the canvas to challenge the viewer’s perception of negative space while borrowing from the Cubist approach to composition. Figures and forms are woven into the fabric of the plane so that space warps into figures and form. The juxtaposition of complementary colors of thinly applied brushstrokes, over each other, creates a mesh-like pattern, so that figures rise or recede, at times becoming almost invisible.”

Fall landscape with two trees - Oil on canvas 30 x 40 x 1 in.
Woman 4 - Oil on canvas 48 x 30 x 1 in.
Untitled (Pen 03) - Pen on paper 20 x 30 x 0.1 in.
Study after Leonardo's Burlington Cartoon - Pen on paper 30 x 22 x 0.1 in.

This review was published by Circle Foundation for the Arts © CFA Press ∙ Images are courtesy of the artist


 

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