Aleksandr AVAGYAN

Aleksandr Avagyan was born in 1990 in Yerevan, in the former Armenian SSR. After attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Yerevan, Aleksandr Avagyan left for Marseille in 2012. After a short period at the Fine Arts School, he continued his studies in Visual Arts at the University of Aix-Marseille.

Since 2014, the artist has been interested in the notions of zone, place, and synthetic landscape. Influenced by his experience of the northern districts of Marseille and being denied the right to return to his native country for many years, his landscapes become increasingly impersonal and neutral, tending towards the abstract. Also interested in political maps of the world, and in particular in self-proclaimed countries not recognized by the international community, Aleksandr Avagyan attempts to embody zones of resistance through his painting.

Armed with an extremely colorful and vibrant palette, his works, now abstract, leave the classic perimeter of the format to spread towards more surprising, sometimes even three-dimensional forms. The patches of color that the painter calls "zones" sometimes adjoin and coexist, but also clash and conflict. Thanks to the introduction of volume, the painting takes shape and is positioned to support a wall, wedge a cover or demarcate a border.

His mediums are multiple: craft paper, aluminum plates, cleats and planks of wood, but also cardboard and canvases. These materials, often raw, a priori devoid of interest, are mostly found, recovered or offered. This is why the encounter is at the heart of Avagyan's work, since it is necessary for the raw material to catch the eye.