Portsmouth Herald News, NH
March 19 2005
Angels & Demons
By Jeanne McCartin
[email protected]
Kittery’s Haley Farm Gallery, the new venue that opened with two
children’s art shows, is premiering its adult exhibitions with a
wallop.
“Survival Through Creativity,” which features the work of two
Boston-based artists, Berj Kailian and Samuel Bak, is a powerful
collection that commemorates both the 90th anniversary of the 1915
Armenian Genocide and the 60th anniversary of the Holocaust, by
survivors of those atrocities. The event opens Saturday, March 19.
“We wanted to do something for this very historic time. … We wanted
people that projected images that said, `Yes, we went through a
trauma, a horrible atrocity, but we came out surviving,'” says Jackie
Abramian, who with her husband, Harout DerSimonian, co-owns the
gallery. “We wanted artists who were survivors, witnesses of these
genocides.”
Abramian and DerSimonian are Armenian, touched by genocide, she says.
It is in part the reason for making note of these past, momentous
human tragedies. But a key focus of the exhibit is survival, she
adds.
Kailian, now 90, survived the Armenian Genocide; Bak, 72, the
Holocaust. Abramian and DerSimonian, who moved here from
Massachusetts in 2004, were acquainted with Kailian. When they asked
her to exhibit, her reaction was, “Who would want to pay attention to
me?”
“She was not going to do it,” says Abramian. “We had to do a lot of
convincing.”
They persisted because Kailian’s work optimized what they wanted to
say with the exhibition.
“She does not use dark colors or moan and grown. She is a survivor,”
says Abramian.
The couple went looking for a second artist, one who had survived the
horrors of Nazi Germany. They wanted someone whose work was
compatible with Kailian’s, “that would marry nicely when we put them
together … and would (have) vibrant colors that talk about survival.”
A friend introduced them to Bak. He was what they were looking for.
Arrangements were made with the Pucker Gallery in Boston, his
representatives since 1960, to bring his work to the Seacoast.
“These are two artists who represent the atrocities that they’ve
lived and express it in art without anger or resentment,” Abramian
says. “You know the message is there, the trauma, the psychological
trauma. It continues for generations. … But they are survivors.”
“Myth & Symbol Series” (1999), a monoprint collage by Berj Kailian.
Courtesy photo
There is that. But an underlying theme is the long-term effect of
atrocity. As an Armenian, Abramian is aware of its effects on a
family, a people and the world.
“We live with the genocide. It is alive daily, in discussion, in our
conversations,” she says. “In both (cultures) there are feasts and
holidays that specifically center around survival. They are different
ways of remembering our victims … and taking an active role in saying
we know what war can do. War affects the generations to follow.”
The show is also timely, given the state of world affairs, she says.
“We’re not blind to what’s happening in this world today. We know
what it means to lose your entire family, home and extended tribe.
Never having known great-grandfathers, or even grandfathers, because
some power thought they were evil and needed to be eliminated,” she
says. “The message is we are all human beings. And when you kill,
everyone dies. Death is a real thing. It hurts everyone, whether
you’re Christians, Jews, Chinese, Muslim, everyone.”
Kailian was born in Keghi, Armenia, in 1914. Her extended family was
one of the last to be driven out. Her father, imprisoned and
tortured, was later asked to dig his own grave and was buried alive
by the Turkish authorities.
Kailian, nine months at the time, would be the only child of four to
survive following the family’s forced marches through Armenia.
Eventually she and her mother were brought to the United States by an
uncle. Now a resident of Weymouth, Mass., she is perhaps the only
Armenian-American woman artist survivor of the genocide.
“Art was a natural selection because I could express a great deal of
thought and emotion through it in my own way. I’m still doing it;
maybe it’s an escape,” says Kailian, in a statement. “I use earth
pigments … everything comes from the earth. I tear, I dig, I use sand
and earth, or gravel. I think that’s the hurt … but I can’t go beyond
that.”
Bak was born in Vilna, Poland, in 1933. He and his family were forced
into the Vilna ghetto and later to a labor camp. He was smuggled from
the camp and given refuge in a monastery. He and his mother were the
only survivors of an extensive family.
He has spent his life dealing with the artistic expression of the
destruction and dehumanization that make up his childhood memories.
“I feel the necessity to remember and take it upon myself to bear
witness to the things that happened in those times, so that human
beings today and those of tomorrow, if it were only possible, are
spared a similar destiny on earth,” he says.
Bak talks about the process of repairing a broken vessel in his work,
says Abramian. That’s what the survivors are: “They are in disrepair,
not whole anymore.”
Neither Bak nor Kailian will attend the opening, in part because of
their ages, Abramian says. “And they don’t want to be standing there
with people staring at them, (saying), `Oh, a survivor.’ Berj says
the art is what she’s about.”
The Haley Gallery will offer supporting products, books by the
artists, and books on the Armenian Genocide and Jewish Holocaust.
Abramian also invites groups to hold discussions on the events,
surrounded by the work.
“Maybe on this 90th and 60th anniversary, and for the genocides that
followed, we have to take a harder look at what are we going to do,”
says Abramian. “Are we going to have monuments to the dead, or
celebrate life and peace?”