Atom Hovhanesyan — Contemporary Art Curator Magazine

Biography

Atom Hovhanesyan ( August 19, 1981 - May 10, 2018 ) 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 immigrated to the United States. In 1998, Atom 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. 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, 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.

Artist Statement

I developed and refined my Post Divisionism style and technique in a series of paintings of women and landscapes. 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 complimentary colors of thinly applied brushstrokes, over each other, creates a mesh-like pattern, so that figures rise or recede, at times becoming almost invisible.
In the painting process, repetitive crosshatching allows the subconscious to direct the composition, creating tension between the desire to hide vs the need to reveal, conflict between subconscious and self-conscious arises. The eye creates a path as it views and moves through the painting and the subconscious and conscious mind detects bits and pieces of thoughts, emotions and or memories that become a unified epilogue that’s open to interpretation. Working with ink, multiple layers of crosshatching creates a play between light and texture. The seemingly chaotic use of crosshatched lines is intentional, like the Impressionist’s use of ink, while surreal and symbolic.

Website artbyatom.com

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