Watertown TAB & Press, MA
May 26 2006

Barooshian retrospective at ALMA

By Ann Hablanian/ Correspondent
Friday, May 26, 2006 – Updated: 11:07 AM EST

New York artist Martin Barooshian’s relocation to his home-state
Massachusetts is being commemorated by a retrospective of his work at
the Armenian Library and Museum of America.

Spanning over half a century (1956-2006), Barooshian’s body of
work, like that of many artists, passes through definable periods,
yet his work has a distinct continuum. Traces from Greek mythology
merge or reappear in altered form to be further explored. Vividly
colored roosters, disappearing Cheshire cats with leonine faces and
storybook Alices re-create a wonderland of their own.

Barooshian is not an artist who alleviates his angst by dabbing
paint on canvas; immediate and short-lived gratification is not his
destination. As a superior printmaker, he brings precision and
meticulous attention to color nuance to bear on every inch of canvas.
In his latest paintings, which take on a geometric symmetry rendered
in neo-pointillism, the impression is that each dot was weighed,
balanced and analyzed. While the overall effect is a vibrant
scintillation, it suggests an amazing internalization of push-pull or
complementary color theory, as evidenced in his canvases, “The Four
Seasons” and “Colors, Primary, Secondary.”

There is no question that Barooshian’s early work shows some
influence by Arshille Gorky and his contemporaries. Yet already in
the 1960s these “gardens of erotic delights” reflect Barooshian’s
intense attention to detail and artistic control. His amorphous
biomorphic forms, where the animal and vegetable worlds merge into
one, are superimposed by cubistic elements, and influenced by his
book-illustration prints, such as the “Alice in Wonderland” series.

In the 1970s, one sees the emergence of a clear individual style
with strong surreal tendencies. This is an exciting period, perhaps
the artist’s first signature period. “Vision 15,” also titled “Enigma
of the Armenian Sphinx” (48×40-inch oil on canvas with gold leaf), is
indeed a vision. One might state that all of Barooshian’s works are
visions, from exotic birds in small color intaglio etchings to larger
paintings.

Some of the same images appear in the 1990s, such as the more
spacious and less content-packed “The Dream,” where flying men, face
segments, lotus blossoms and vertebrae decorated with flowers, float
among amoeboid-segmented bodies, and a woman with smooth young face
and muscular body. Sounds bizarre? Not really. The overall impression
is that this artist is a seeker of beauty and harmony.

The works of the 2000s are no less enticing. The merging of ideas is
evident, such as in “Mardi Gras in New Orleans,” a small painting
(20×15-inch) with its lush painterly quality and flat geometric
squares. Nor is the work all brow-imposed eroticism. There is humor
in a work such as the “Boogie Woogie” dancers (2006); and re-emerging
are the storybook creatures in a pointillism such as “The Cat, Bird,
and Duck” (2003) a 20×20-inch piece. “Bach, Beethoven, and Shubert”
does not clearly define the music or the masters (fugue, symphony or
Lieder?), one is left wondering why the names within the work, except
as the artist’s license to expose his skill and give homage to his
favorite composers. In general these pointillist-like works such as
“Dada Swing” and “Hip Hop/Hip Hop” are highly refined. If at first
glance these works remind one of classroom geometric coloring
exercises, the comparison ends where complexity and interwoven detail
begin.

Barooshian’s synthesis of acknowledged American painters of the
last century is complex. It is deliberate. It is intelligent. In
reviewing this retrospective, an overall impression is that an
analytical brain is holding the paintbrush.

Barooshian, with degrees from the Boston Museum School of Fine
Arts and Tufts University, a graduate degree from Boston University
and further training in Europe (Paris mainly), has won fellowships
and awards, and his works are in the permanent collection of museums
such as the Metropolitan and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, at
the Boston MFA, galleries in Washington, D.C., and countries such as
Armenia, Canada and India.

What Barooshian needs and should achieve is well-deserved
recognition as one of America’s outstanding artists of the latter
part of the 20th century and beyond.

Barooshian’s art

Martin Barooshian: a 50Year Retrospective of Paintings and Prints
opened on May 5 and continues through May 28 at the Contemporary Art
Gallery (third floor) at the Armenian Library & Museum of America, 65
Main St. Call 617-926-ALMA (2562).
From: Baghdasarian