THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
By Rosette Gonzales, News-Press and Leader
Burbank Leader / Glendale News Press
Sept 17 2005
Painter inspired by nature’s shapes and symbols questions viewer’s
perceptions.
Visual artist Zareh said he doesn’t ponder too much before starting to
paint or draw. He just goes with what feels natural. At first glance,
the recurring shapes in his work, like fish, leaves and circles,
seem basic but his message is complex.
“What he can’t say aloud, he’s trying to say in his pictures,” said
Gayane Galustyan, curator for Harvest Gallery, which is exhibiting
36 of Zareh’s acrylic paintings, drawings and three-dimensional mixed
media until Sept. 27. “All his works are very simple, but at the same
time, they have depth. Every piece makes you think.”
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Zareh, a resident of Glendale, uses simple shapes found everyday in
nature to convey his feelings about the relationship humans have
with the world as natural beings. Frequent in his Harvest Gallery
installation is the use of leaves and fish. The vein of a leaf is not
so different from the cross section of a fish, exposing its bones,
Zareh said. Their shapes are also similar to one another and relate to
life, he said, because the beginning and the ending are not the same.
“So nature has prepared in its own best way, the construction of
living things in this world,” he said.
One of Zareh’s untitled canvases illustrates this through a human
portrait. Zareh drew a leaf for an eyebrow, its stem curving down to
become the nose. The other eyebrow is a fish, the same size and shape
as the leaf across from it. V’s and circles were drawn in as hair.
Text on the canvas reads “real ingredients.”
“I think he’s very socially conscious,” said Ramela Grigorian
Abbamontian, an art historian at UCLA who is including Zareh’s work
in her dissertation on Armenian artists in Los Angeles. “He responds
as a human being living in this globalized age.”
Zareh’s piece “Gray Flights” depicts his thoughts of Britain’s
political history and the recent London bombings. But he is careful
to leave most of the interpretation up to the viewer. He manipulates a
British flag with gray circles of paint that could be bombs or clouds,
he said. And he divides the flag by painting a horizontal zig-zag
line through it.
“I’m showing that things are changing at this time in London,” he said.
Change is a constant theme in his work, illustrating the continuous
flux of nature and life.
“I have a stable character but we are all living together — me,
you and trees and leaves,” he said. “Some things are changing slowly,
some faster, but they are all changing.”
With one untitled canvas, he began the art by repetitively drawing
lines in pencil, which eventually turned into tallies illustrating
time.
“Intervals show the passing of time and distance because without
intervals, we cannot show the passing of time,” he said.
But one ending can be another beginning, Galustyan said, and Zareh’s
work states that everything in this world is relative. Shapes like
V’s, and dots are recurring in the exhibit and act as symbols. Two
V’s together could symbolize a bird, yet they could mean something
else in another piece.
Zareh refrains from defining symbols specifically in his art and
chose not to title most of the works.
By being somewhat elusive, Abbamontian said Zareh is able to more
actively engage the viewer. Viewers become conscious of the shapes
and will begin to notice them in each piece.
“That’s visual dialogue,” she said. “You’re thinking, ‘What are
these forms that I’m looking at and why do they keep coming up on
these canvases?'”
Viewers then become familiar with his style, noticing patterns
in the symbols and are challenged to interpret them on their own,
Abbamontian said.
FYI
WHAT: Exhibition by artist Zareh
WHEN: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday until Sept. 27
WHERE: Harvest Gallery, 938 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale
CONTACT: (818) 546-1000