Arthur K.

Towards More Depth

Since ancient ages, the East has been a source of inspiration for renowned Western painters with its variety and rich cultures; from Delacroix to Jerome, and up to Matise and Picasso.

Today, the roles have changed. Many of the Eastern artists not only are inspired by the modern movements of the Western art, but also some even imitate them. However, we have artists with strong personalities, who not only avoid the Western influence, but also try hard to study and delve into the Eastern cultures, in order to get nourishment from them.

Arthur K. is of this latter kind. His art life is saturated with serious and productive search. Yes, after pushing his profession, medicine, to the margins, he has taken up painting, where he finds his psychological peace and the means to express himself in an artistic way. This physician, who has an artist’s character, continues to study the ancient Eastern art, where he seems to have especially fallen in love with the Byzantine iconism and Phoenician art. At the beginning, he used to employ copying, in order to study the skill and profession of painting. Then, he started to paint under the favorable influence of some modern artists, like Paul Guiragossian, Vrouyr Kalsdian, Minas Avedissian, Robert Elipegian, etc. After being occupied with artistic search for some time, in his later years he became a self-confident and accomplished artist, and plunged into a life of creating, during which he realized series of his own under headings such as, Village Scenes, Crucifixions, Girls with Violins, Phoenician Echoes, and Human Rights.

a. The Village Scenes are basically inspired by the Lebanese mountain villages that are characterized by three main colors: the blue of the sky; the green of the woods; and the red of the brick-covered houses. Here the artist deals freely with these main colors, and mingles their hues, harmonizes them and creates works of fauvistic nature, that on the one hand are typical of the Lebanese country scenes and, on the other hand, carry the artist’s personality, where they come out as paintings with unique characteristics.
 

b. In the Crucifixions series, the artist makes a quick move from fauvism to surrealism, where he continues his search, and seems to go deeper into himself, trying to generalize his own suffering and express Christ’s suffering through different characters. Here, as a character factor, on the one hand the desire to offer the self for the sake of human values is revealed, and on the other hand, he tries to present us with the charm of the Byzantine iconism, but without repeating or imitating it.
 

c. The series Girls with Violins plays an important role in the creative life of the artist, because he, without turning beauty into an ideal, searches for it on the path of life through semi abstract forms and docile colors. Here it seems that the painter purposely avoids the acute psychological contradictions or crises, in order to be able to express the harmony of color forms and inner peace to a maximum level, where colorful melodies are heard, but which are more than serenades; they express the elevating spheres of hymns.
 

d. If the series Girls with Violins played an important role in the creative life of the artist, then the Phoenician Echoes have a pivotal meaning in his whole artistic heritage. Arthur K. has been able, through his searches, not only to penetrate the depths of the Phoenician history and culture, but also it seems that he has become intimate with the Phoenician characters; gods, kings, princesses, and even soldiers, like Baal, Ashtharimus, Elissa, Ahiram, etc. He paints them with a unique awe, to express their nobility, charm and human characteristics.
 

e. The series, Human Rights express the artist’s position and struggle against the greed and difficulties that produce human injustice. In the case of this series, the painter, in order to be able to express himself completely, uses a variety of means to color; he even uses collage, where many familiar faces are presented like, Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgio de Chiricco, Freud, Parajanov, Brecht, Beatles, Minas Avedissian, Chrisdapor Mickaelian, and many others. The idea of war and the fact of having ruins seem to be desecrated. In order to be able to transfer his message, he even uses Letterism. For example, he embosses the word Pollution in Picasso’s brain, to show that the consciousness of the geniuses is deformed today; to misdirect them away from the truth. In this series, Arthur K. is seen as a very politicized and committed artist, whose brush is rendered an aggressive weapon against all those who try to dismantle life from its course, to disturb harmony and drive towards a swamp-like condition, towards disfigurement.
He is influenced by the most unique philosophy of author Zecharia Sitchin about the birth of our civilization in the areas where the people of Sumer, Mari, Urartu and Phoenicia lived.

His searches are productive and pregnant with novelty. On the one hand they enrich his inner world, and on the other hand drive him towards more depth and a unique self-expression.

 

Movses Zirani

Doctorate in Fine Arts
Noah's Ark Gallery
www.noahsarkgallery.com