Kima Gyarakyan and Nareh Petrossian are visual artists currently living and working in Armenia. They are our featured artists this week on the HAYP/IN SITU “Virtual Viewing Room” platform, a space for online artworks from June 1 – August 2, 2020. In this interview, we learn a little more about their project “Loveless” and their philosophy as an artistic duo. Scroll down to the very bottom for a complete bio.
HAYP/ IN SITU: Tell us about your VVR project, “Loveless”.
KIMA GYARAKYAN + NAREH PETROSSIAN: “Loveless” is about the repetition of images as a metaphor for a similarity of days. What does repetition give us, or why do we repeat the same actions and deeds? Through our composition, we have tried to represent the human feelings, words, actions and repetition of thoughts in everyday life.
HI: How does this relate to your artistic practice? Can you tell us more about your collaboration as an artistic duo?
KG/NP: Nare + Kima = a work of art.
We have been thinking and talking about art and works of art together for a long time. We complement each other. By collaborating, we put aside our sense of self, authorship or concerns for copyright, we ignore our own ego. We create art that belongs to everyone.
HI: Who/what inspires you?
KG/NP: Everything and nothing.
HI: What does confinement mean to you? Have you (re)discovered something during this time?
KG/NP: During confinement, we were able to understand and appreciate things we hadn’t noticed before, or took for granted. We became aware of how fear can be a limitation for us. And in order not to limit ourselves, we try to transform those fears into art.
HI: When you’re not making art, what do you enjoy the most?
KG/NP: Everything we do is somehow linked to our art. Even if we’re not making art, the feelings we experience – the pleasures, the good, the bad..these things we live – always lead us back to art and the creative process.
HI: If you had a magic wand, and could change one thing about the art scene in Armenia, what would it be?
KG/NP: Everything is right even when it’s wrong. Art will change as long as we change.
HI: What is your dream project that you haven’t had a chance to work on yet?
KG/NP: Of course we have projects that we haven’t implemented yet. But it’s too soon to share…any thought or project can be realized only when the desire and the moment mature. But one thing we’re interested in doing more of for sure is bringing art out into the public space, in the streets.
About Nareh Petrossian and Kima Gyarakyan:
Visit Nareh & Kima’s Virtual Viewing Room project, “loveless” until June 21, 2020.
Follow them on instagram @nareh.petrossian, and @kimagyarakyan
Kima and Nareh are emerging contemporary artists who are “inspired by everything and nothing,” as they put it. They have a shared interest in exploring themes from everyday life, and are particularly inspired by how its repetitive nature serves as a catalyst for introspection. Though they’ve studied together since high school at the Terlemezyan Art College, and again later at the Fine Arts Academy of Yerevan, their partnership as an artistic duo began recently over the past few months. They believe that in order to make art that belongs to everyone, it’s important to be able to put aside the ego. For them, collaboration is an essential part of this process.
Kima’s works are a reflection of her inner world: her emotional state and feelings. Above all she values the process of making art: finding harmony and a sense of unity while “in the flow”, a state that she also describes as a “blankness” in which she loses herself. Kima has had several solo exhibitions at Dalan Art Gallery, Visual Gap Gallery, and Terlemezyan Gallery. She had a joint exhibition with @Yerevantropics curated by IN SITU in the framework of the 2019 Armenia Art Fair.
Nareh’s work revolves around abstract and universal themes. She is interested in color, volume, and how to incorporate playfulness in her compositions. Most recently, her work has focused on love. Her practice synthesizes the universal and the specific, in hopes of making her work relatable and engaging to audiences. Nareh has participated in several exhibitions at the Terlemezyan Gallery, the Hovhannes Tumanyan Museum, as well as the 2019 Urban Art Festival by Visual Gap Gallery and the Goethe-Centre Yerevan.
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