Stone Carver, 2021
Pencil on paper
£850
Out of stock
About the Artist
Thénie Khatchatourov (b.1989, Switzerland) is a contemporary visual artist whose works seem by nature to be a bridge between individuals and a way to transcend borders. It nevertheless finds its roots in the lands and traditions of my ancestors, some of whom came from Armenia. From this perspective, symbols, primordial and universal, are central to Thénie's creative work and guide to her aesthetic research. While today sacred subjects are increasingly forsaken, or even desecrated, by artists, Thénie finds herself reassessing their significance. She feels drawn to mystical subject matter and seek ways of integrating it in a contemporary setting, as a sort of dialogue between past and present. Themes such as love, death, birth, war and peace pervade Thénie's artwork. She make collages of evocative, symbolic elements, in a coloured or monochrome pared-down spare style. Thénie also likes to work with a lead pencil, as it lends the drawings a stone-carving likeness, reminiscent of the celebrated works of Armenian masons. The volume thus obtained is a way of translating abstract concepts into the material world. As for Thénie's paintings, they are mainly monochrome, or neutral; by use variations of black, grey, beige and white to better express links with the past, time-honoured, epic or mythical. Thénie lives and works in Geneva, Switzerland.