Homeland: Nature
Vahe Baghumyan’s solo exhibition
Vahe Baghumyan is currently a 2nd year student at Bachelor programme of Graphics, State Academy of Fine Arts of Armenia. Painting is not merely a means of self-expression for him, but an inner demand. He was keen to painting from a very young age.
He has been studying at Fine Arts school for six years, then at Terlemezyan College, and currently at State Academy of Fine Arts of Armenia.
In 2016 Vahe Baghumyan was on a military duty in Artsakh, and participated in the four-day war. While on service he won competitions in two exhibitions: one dedicated to the 100th commemoration of the Genocide and the other within the thematic context of war and life. He was encouraged by winning and was provided with a short vocation.
The relationship between the nature and the artist is especially closer: the art of drawing is nurtured directly from it. Great artists have talked a lot about it, “go to nature, and learn from it”. Vahe knows this well, he looks there to understand and feel the mystery of nature – the variety of shapes and colors, their amazing changes to find the secret of the native land in constant development, to receive the true impulses of life. To his conviction, this is what forms the real attitude towards the homeland. In the struggle for life and death, another awareness of the appreciation of the native land is awakened. No matter how many traces of pain, human loss and tragedy the war brings, this reality gives rise to a different level of perception and attitude, a different approach to the country, the land, the human being.
Vahe’s first solo exhibition at Albert and Tove Boyajyan exhibition-hall is entitled “My Armenia”: it is the artist’s approach to the land, the love to the land, the nature found in nature and its artistic expression. He thinks that everyone should pay his duty to his homeland as much as possible. His duty is painting; he is trying to convey his love through it.
At the opening, the first speech was delivered by a student. Yeva Malkhasyan was the organizer of the exhibition, a second-year student and she saw Vahe’s advantage in his diligence, his nature of a seeker. She said he was one of those few who used to read; she considered his main motivation the link between nature and human being, and she found it natural the influence from different artists․
Rector of State Academy of Fine Arts of Armenia, Aram Isabekyan noticed individual approach and attitude in his graphic works. Head of Graphics chair Abraham Sahakyan noted that the students who enter SAFAA after graduating from Terlemezyan College, found some difficulties in creating graphic works, as the rules were different in that case, not the same as in painting. Vahe had recently recorded noticeable changes in this regard.
Being thankful to the faculty of SAFAA and the Rector Aram Isabekyan for the opportunity of being exhibited, Vahe Baghumyan outlined the importance of having exhibitions during study years. And his elder brother stressed out that the level of the student’s creative activity increased when he felt support and attention towards himself from his lecturers and the Rector.
Melanya Badalyan
Translated by Naira Stepanyan
