Bastonlu Kız / Girl with a Cane

Daron Mouradian

Daron Mouradian was born in 1961, in Yerevan, Armenia. He was awarded the prize of Excellence of the Fine Arts Academy of Yerevan. His works are exhibited in Armenia (1972-1991), Paris (1992-1996), Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, and New York. All his works are inspired by Armenian culture, combining the civilisations of the East and the West, and including memories of the past (the Middle Ages). Mouradian's world of fantasy is an ever-changing environment where the Bible and Mythology play a major role. He leads us to make an in-depth self-analysis, in search of our own roots, to be able to live the future with greater serenity. Daron Mouradian transforms his interest in mechanics to self-invented tools of travel. Sometimes he places a knightly figure with palace vestments on a cannonball which he perceives as a strange aircraft, and other times on an odd locomotive or a rocking fish with wooden legs. But the most important feature of these vehicles as they appear is the fact that they are not moving at all, since Mouradian concerns himself with immobility as well as motion. By animating every single detail on the canvas, he represents an illusion laden with irony and humour, appealing to our imagination; thus, enabling the reocurrence of forgotten dreams in our consciousness. While the colors he uses reanimate the times of fairy tales, by exposing the tripe of puissance and the absurdity of violence he leaves us with a story of violence emerging from this marvelous fairy tale. The power of his works lies in his gracefulness with which he portrays his disappointed conscience in a fantastic universe. His works are elegant, but his critique is bitter. The artist’s ability to become some sort of a conscient wizard is clearly apparent.