Los Angeles has long been home to a thriving community of Armenian artists whose work is infused with passionate visages of people, landscapes and cuisine from the other side of the world. Local creatives like Glendale painter Shahin Mastian and Pasadena musician and sculptor Tigran Martikyan seek to share meaningful stories through their work, which will be showcased in a group exhibit at Napulitanamente Magazine Los Angeles’ Mediterranean Cocktail of Art event on Thursday, May 4.
Born in Iran to an Armenian family, Mastian’s childhood curiosity led him toward the fields of engineering and mathematics, though he always felt a strong connection to the arts. He would often paint watercolor landscapes, using his brush to decode the world around him.
After moving to the United States when he was 22 and settling into his new home, where he now works as a software development consultant, Mastian started to take his passion for painting more seriously. He was inspired by masters like Vincent van Gogh, George Seurat, Paul Signac and Claude Monet, but wanted to find his own “Mastian” style.
“One day, I was looking at a painting … and I’m asking myself, ‘Why is this good?’” he said. “Then it came to me that I felt good about it because the image was not a perfect image. The image gives an abstract, general view of what it should be. It allows the viewer to complete the rest.
“When you look at any painting or you look at the world, you see yourself; you build what you want to see in reality, so what I create is basically the trigger of where to start from for the viewers. … I went back into my own paintings and repainted in a different way.”
Mastian described himself as an impressionistic pointillist who especially loves painting rainy night scenes, where lights and colors dance in mirror-like puddles or waterways.
In the Mediterranean Cocktail of Art exhibition, he will be displaying seven paintings that depict Mount Ararat with the lights of Armenian capital Yerevan in the distance, Rome’s coliseum at night, the canals of Venice, New York City in the rain, Paris’ Champs-Élysées, and two images of flamenco dancers in a nightclub.
“When I want to paint something, the painting is already created in my mind, in my soul, in my emotions, in my view … and so the rest is externalizing, bringing it to the world,” Mastian said. “I love life and happiness. I want to project a happy image in my paintings.”
For Armenian-born Martikyan, whose award-winning career as a pianist and composer has brought him to esteemed venues like Carnegie Hall, his journey into sculpture began when he became a caretaker for his mother.
“I was isolated from the people that I know, friends and relatives,” Martikyan described. “My focus was my mother and I wanted to do something creative. I wanted to make something, and I chose sculpture because the 3D form of sculpture was appealing.
“I wanted to see a piece of art … that I can feel like I’m with people. I wanted to create a face (that) will kind of give me a company so that I’m not alone.”
Martikyan began to explore and study different forms to try to breathe as much life into his sculptures as possible. He had always been interested in the human figure and wanted to give his artworks a “soul” of their own.
He will be presenting four of his sculptures in the Mediterranean Cocktail of Art exhibition. They depict an Armenian grandmother with a cross hanging around her neck, a composer musing over his metallic piano, a tooth whose roots form arms that clean itself with a brush and toothpaste, and a little girl in a ballerina-like dress standing against a wall with her hands opened and a smile on her face.
“This one I wanted to call ‘Peace,’” Martikyan said. “The little girl is … relaxed, and she just wants everybody else to live in peace. That’s the message.”
From abstract paintings to human-like sculptures, Napulitanamente Magazine’s Mediterranean Cocktail of Art will provide a platform for an array of Armenian voices and brushes. Editor Ingrid Pagliarulo described it as a rich combination of cultures and influences.
“There is a strong feeling of being Armenian that they have, and this feeling emits from their artworks,” she said. “Even if (Mastian) paints Italian cities or New York or cities from France, there is always the feeling, like the passion. … That kind of passion, that kind of way to express his feelings, his way to feel a place, to feel a scenery, is like poetry. … (When) you see his paintings, … you see a world. You don’t see just the scene; you can feel the world around it.
“Tigran is like a genius in the piano. He’s able to express it also through his sculptures. He’s very attached to classical shapes … and respect of the shapes, respect of nature and of the nature of shapes. I believe that artists have to be philosophers, and then through their philosophy, their thoughts, there comes the talent to express what they are thinking.”
The multi-art event, produced by Low Pulse Project, will also feature the work of photographers Karine Armen and Flavio Sanguinetti with music by Daniele De Cario and guest soprano Era Kayln. For Pagliarulo, who was born in Naples, Italy, it provides an opportunity to show the similarities between the artworks and cultures of Armenia and South Italy.
“I’ve realized since I came here that we have many things in common with Armenian people,” she said. “There is especially a strong relationship with religion, which is kind of different with the rest of Italy. … Napoli is very attached, very linked to Armenia because in our cathedral, San Gregorio Armeno, we save the skull of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, who is the one that brought Christianity to Armenia.
“(It’s) also the temperament of people because we both have volcanic areas. … Underneath the ground, there is fire. There is always a passion and strong feelings, and it’s different from the rest of the places.”
For the artists, the event is an opportunity to share their work with people across Los Angeles from a variety of backgrounds. Mastian described it as an unprecedented way to connect with others.
“If a collector buys my art, I am extending my wall and my studio to the home or wall of the buyer,” he said. “When a buyer is buying my art, I feel we are sharing feelings; we are sharing our emotions. And the more you share, the more connectedness you create.”
Martikyan added that the exhibit offers an opportunity to inspire people to pursue their passions and express themselves freely.
“(Art) makes me happy; it’s very spiritual, and very fulfilling,” he said. “The most important message that I want to pass on is the love of art and to inspire people so that if they have a passion to do something creative, … use that creativity to make some art.”
Napulitanamente Magazine Los Angeles’ Mediterranean Cocktail of Art
WHEN: 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, May 4
WHERE: 11405 Chandler Boulevard, North Hollywood
COST: Free with RSVP
INFO: napulitanamente.com