Artistic Influence: Srboohie Abaijan

Whilst researching my subject, I came across a piece portraying loneliness in the city by Srboohie Abaijan. I immediately started finding out about the artist and their intentions when creating their artwork. Even though the piece concerned was the initial inspiration for my coming across this artist, it was their artistic statement that really captured me:

“Art is not a matter of painting something to the last detail. It is a matter of expressing the state, emotions, and thoughts of one’s subject.

True art expresses life as a whole, and it is more alive and moving than life itself.

Art must express those characteristics and emotional states that are inexpressible in words.

Being an artist means seeing the world in a new way. The artist is not the one who paints well and correctly; the artist is the one who looks at life anew and expresses his own philosophy of life.

A wealth of technique is worthless in itself. Technique must serve one’s intended meaning. And meaning must originate from life.”

-Srboohie Abajian

In her words, she captures exactly how I feel about being an artist myself. I don’t believe being an artist is about painting things accurately or realistic practice. I believe it is about expressing yourself. Throughout this project, I intend to express the loneliness of the city within my work. I do not however intend to paint photo realistic imagery because in my opinion it lacks individuality and doesn’t portray your view of the subject concerned. I want to show how people can be lonely even though they are around others and how the city can be a lonely place in general, I will produce artwork that emits and expresses a feeling of loneliness.

Abajian experiments with Acrylic, Monotype and Collage within her piece “Loneliness in the Big City”. It is a visually stunning artwork in my opinion and to me expresses the need for emotional interaction within the city. It shows how people can be alone so easily within cities and how you can end up on a downward spiral of depression or upset by being alone and craving emotional attachment. The Hollywood sign and use of vibrant colouring makes me think the artist is making a statement about how life in Hollywood is shown to us as being glamorous and full of highly social people and the reality of many of those people feeling lonely. This piece is highly inspirational to my project and makes me think about juxtaposing how the city is perceived to be and how lonely it is within my artwork.