FRESH ART: NUNE ASATRYAN

Sun-Sentinel
,0,4125421.story
July 20 2011
FL

This Lake Worth artist gathers her forces behind the walls of her
art compound.

Nune Asatryan says her friends call her Lake Worth house “the
art compound.” Perhaps that’s because Asatryan and her husband,
singer-songwriter and producer Alan Najarian, don’t see the dwelling
they bought last year as a home with studios, but the opposite.

“It’s two big studios and a few bedrooms spread around it,” Asatryan
says. “We’re not your normal family.”

Raised in a creative environment, the painter and sculptor is
accustomed to art being embedded in her daily routine. Growing up in
Armenia, her family lived in an apartment next door to her father’s
sculpting studio, which she says drew a bohemian crowd and interesting
conversations. In the summer, the family would visit Lake Sevan.

“It’s one of the biggest [high-altitude] lakes in the world,” she
says. “Right on the beach were creative houses for artists that
belong to the Artists Union of Armenia. Artists from all over the
world would come and bring guests. Everybody would be there with
their easels and tools.”

Asatryan says her life in Lake Worth has a similar feeling of
community. Artists and musician friends are always dropping in, playing
music and discussing creative ideas, while her 8-year-old daughter,
Zara, runs from one studio to another singing, drawing, painting and
socializing. She and her husband channel this energy into their work.

For several years, Asatryan has been flipping back and forth between
series, creating oil paintings such as “Blue Oasis” and “Beautiful
Mind,” which depict fish and flora mingling in what looks like
shimmery, sunlit water. “Rebirth,” which produces a similar effect,
depicts seven nude women who appear to be walking or floating toward
a common place. The women have a translucent, ghostlike quality. One
figure’s mothlike wings bear spots resembling two large eyes. Eleven
more pairs of eyes are stacked atop one another on the right side of
the painting.

Connections, Asatryan’s most recent series, is a bit of a departure
from her previous work, in that it is less panoramic, depicting a
zoomed-in view of thick, weighty-looking chains in various positions.

But this series and her earlier works are similarly textured.

“It’s not texture as in sculpting texture,” Asatryan says. “It’s flat.

But colorwise, the paint is vibrating with little splashes and dots,
and that’s how you can recognize my work.”

Some paintings were completed in three days. “It’s just like burning
inside, and you do it and then go to sleep for another few days,”
she says. “Other works take considerably longer.”

“Immortality” depicts a sea of faces, including those of Jesus,
demons and artistic inspirations such asLeonardo da Vinci. Asatryan
worked on the piece for years, even though a buyer was waiting for it.

“I have to stop myself because people are like, ‘Hey, that’s the
hundredth painting of your one canvas.’ I just keep going,” she says.

Asatryan, who recently exhibited at the Mid-Summer Pop Up exhibition
at Deja New Gallery inPalm Beach Gardens, usually declines to go into
great detail about the meaning of her works. Once she’s finished,
she’s more interested in what viewers see.

“When the artist stops painting, I don’t think the art belongs to
them anymore,” she says. “The art belongs to the viewer. So I say,
‘What do you see in there? How do you feel about it?’ They talk and
talk, and I say, ‘That’s what it’s about. … It’s your connection
with that painting, whatever it makes you feel.’ That’s what art
really is and that’s what it should be.”