A solo exhibition by Talar Aghbashian
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Arch II, Oil paint on canvas, 50 x 40 cm
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Beachside, 2012, Oil paint on canvas, 40 x 50 cm
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Painting of a very small cloud, 2013, Emulsion & oil paint on canvas, 41 x 41 cm
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Flood II, 2012, Oil paint on canvas, 60 x 75 cm
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Flood IV, 2012, Oil paint on canvas, 70 x 75 cm
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Forest, 2012, Oil paint on canvas, 70 x 60 cm
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Helicopter disaster, 2013, Oil paint on canvas, 40 x 50 cm
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Ice cream van, 2013, Oil paint on canvas, 40 x 50 cm
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Submarine, 2012, Emulsion & oil on canvas, 31 x 31 cm
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Skate Park, 2012, Oil paint on canvas, 40 x 50 cm
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Obama's Tour Bus, 2012, Emulsion & oil paint on canvas, 31 x 31 cm
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Tower blown away, 2013, Oil paint on canvas, 50 x 40 cm
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Untitled (Rock Ruin), 2012, Oil paint on canvas, 60 x 75 cm
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Vietnam, 2012, Oil paint on canvas, 50 x 50 cm
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Bridge III, 2012, Oil paint on canvas, 40 x 50 cm
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Jungle Wallpaper, 2011, Oil paint on canvas, 60 x 70 cm
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Arch III, Oil paint on canvas, 40 x 50 cm
In this new body of work, Talar Aghbashian continues to explore themes of ambiguities of memory, non-linearity of represented time, blurring distinctions between fiction and reality.
This solo exhibition entitled “Blind Finds” invites the viewer to look and explore Aghbashian’s vision of a world haunted by melancholia and loss, yet not devoid of a certain irony. It is precisely those memories drawn from childhood and nature relating to the Lebanese civil war and the Armenian genocide that mark Aghbashian’s vision and feed into the ambiguity of the landscapes she portrays, reflecting the inevitable fate of humankind, perhaps with fatality but always ludic.
These images drawn from reality, sieved through Aghbashian’s mind’s eye, are at once seen and imagined, suspended in a realm between representation and abstraction. They are a detached exploration of a world whose points of reference are fragmented to near abstraction. The original source image is often unrecognisable as forms emerge through the intrinsic constituents of the landscapes that are depicted obscured, distorted and deconstructed.
As viewers we are constantly aware of the illusory nature of Aghbashian's landscapes as they are and are not at the same time what they depict. Aghbashian does not try to conceal the material attributes of the paint and the brushstrokes are never invisible. Thus her paintings play out the idea of a picture being a double reality, representing the object it depicts but not “being” that object. It is precisely this dual vision that is aroused in the spectator of two contradictory feelings of familiarity and strangeness in the experience of looking that create uncanny impressions in the viewer.
In this new body of work, Talar Aghbashian continues to explore themes of ambiguities of memory, non-linearity of represented time, blurring distinctions between fiction and reality.
This solo exhibition entitled “Blind Finds” invites the viewer to look and explore Aghbashian’s vision of a world haunted by melancholia and loss, yet not devoid of a certain irony. It is precisely those memories drawn from childhood and nature relating to the Lebanese civil war and the Armenian genocide that mark Aghbashian’s vision and feed into the ambiguity of the landscapes she portrays, reflecting the inevitable fate of humankind, perhaps with fatality but always ludic.
These images drawn from reality, sieved through Aghbashian’s mind’s eye, are at once seen and imagined, suspended in a realm between representation and abstraction. They are a detached exploration of a world whose points of reference are fragmented to near abstraction. The original source image is often unrecognisable as forms emerge through the intrinsic constituents of the landscapes that are depicted obscured, distorted and deconstructed.
As viewers we are constantly aware of the illusory nature of Aghbashian's landscapes as they are and are not at the same time what they depict. Aghbashian does not try to conceal the material attributes of the paint and the brushstrokes are never invisible. Thus her paintings play out the idea of a picture being a double reality, representing the object it depicts but not “being” that object. It is precisely this dual vision that is aroused in the spectator of two contradictory feelings of familiarity and strangeness in the experience of looking that create uncanny impressions in the viewer.