Sarkis Hamalbashian

SARKIS HAMALBASHIAN may be one of the most consequential artists of our time. He sits smartly at its crossroads, in his native Armenia, at the intersection of global conflict, both past and present, drawing from antiquity, and his own religiosity. He extrapolates images orchestrates narratives, with a keen eye and hand toward events, and man’s determined ambivalence to his own participation within it, and its unenviable outcome. The heavily laden tableaux SARKIS creates, draws from the convergence of these elements, a didactical dance - the archetypal and profane. They are pivotal to the body of his works. His manipulation of images embedded onto heavily laden surfaces, references the historical, both current, and ancient, both personal and global. His provocative narratives, draw forth from each inherent contradiction the complexities of the thinking man, the brooding man, the man both base and resolute, existing at the pivotal juncture of time and space within a highly charged and compromised world, a circuitous wasteland, both tragic and comic. SARKIS is both voyeur and gatherer of images. His process is patient and once readied, impassioned. His approach to surface immediate and instinctual, preying on his canvas with a fierce determination. Extracting pigment directly from the tube onto surface busily collaging and stenciling from his repositories, purposefully yet spontaneous, open to the dictates of the moment, working his way through multiple canvases at a time. The intention according to theartist “ is to reveal the essential sameness of our experience, the passions, ideals, beauty, greed, false hopes, vanities that run like threads across centuries.” “I do not invent what I portray, but simply act as an instrument to convert inspiration and idea into material form.”

SARKIS was born in 1956 in Gyumri Armenia. He studied at the Fine Art Academy in Yerevan, Armenia. His life was marked by war, the devastating earthquake of 1988 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union 1991 subsequent impoverishment of his country as a result. His work is informed by these collective experiences and his mission to distill its aftermath into a reflective body of work. He was awarded the Honorable Artist of the Republic of Armenia w a solo exhibition in his honor at National Gallery of Armenia. Gallery Milmar de Sparkle is proud to represent this extraordinary artist.