Karine Paronyanс. Reflections on contemporary art
Karine is a recognized master of contemporary art. Her professionalism is evidenced by numerous personal and group exhibitions, which have presented the works of her, as well as awards at art competitions. Here is an exclusive material in which Karine shared her thoughts on contemporary art with ArtAlea Gallery.
QR code. Network. Web. Modern ornament. Perspectives. Tunnel. Volumes. Structure. Urban lace. Puzurs. Crystal lattice. Cage. System of coordinates. Architectural framework. Human life is conditioned by the segment of a straight line, limited by the date of birth and death, a sort of individual system of coordinates on a complex map of Creation. Aesthetics of a straight line or scheme is close to human being. This craving for ordering, structuring or symmetry is inbred in human nature. An attempt to turn segment of a straight line which is a human life into an endless vector of a great thought, sensational discovery or creative achievement is the privilege of the few.
Web I (QR code), Karine Paronyanc, 170x170 см, canvas, oil
Ornament is a universal information carrier. It is a bridge connecting past, present and future through capacious visual images and symbols. Through centuries ornament has been the result of handmade creativity of man. These are the very first attempts of ancient man on the way to simplification of form with the aim to achieve maximum expressiveness and meaningfulness of a visual form. Modern QR code is the acme of form stylization and simplification with the maximal meaningfullness. It is amazing how well the character of this ultramodern ornament conveys the essence and spirit of our time. This is the first ornament in the history of mankind generated by computer! What is it? Can it be a victory of artificial intelligence over human mind? Take stereotyped colours, absolutely black and white. What is hidden behind this pattern? Maybe the battle between darkness and light? As it is well known, there are no absolute colours in living nature, as all colours are present in continual interaction, giving birth to an infinite number of nuances and colour shades.
The history of ornament is inextricably related to folk art, nationality, tradition in the deepest meaning of the word. QR code is a story with no roots. And this is so typical of our time, we are cosmopolitans! A life without deep attachments, historical memory and with no traditions to follow is simple and convenient. But simplification of form and craving for stylization are more often just a tribute to convenience than the expression of pithiness and deepness of a concept.
Modern design is defined by functionality and budgetary of its execution. Our everyday life is simple and rational like an apartment block in a residential area. However, must utility function determine the form of modern art as such?! There is something sublime and aristocratic in useless and sophisticated beauty. In modern times, however, the term «beautiful» has become synonymous to kitsch, salon superficiality and even non-intellectual platitude. Though, very often it is turns out to be just an excuse for failure, ignorance of a craft or unwillingness of modern man, caught in a bustle of everyday life, to devote his life to a complex hand work which is far from being always duly appreciated. Or it may be just an impossibility to afford oneself something complex and useless. After all, it has always been a prerogative of aristocracy or intellectual elite. In the century of universal democratization and liberalism one can even visit opera wearing shorts and slippers. So here we are facing deep and fundamental problems of society, where the battle of robots against people so picturesquely depicted in science fiction works of the previous century is already going on. It has a far more sophisticated and less bloody character, though. It also appears to be just a tribute to modern tolerance and pseudo-humanity. With no blood and noise the entire generation of young and possibly up-and-coming ones will perish into a voluntary oblivion of addiction to gadgets, telephones, virtual casinos and trite social networks.
In today’s fashionable definition the function of art is not to impress, but to be original at all costs. I believe renunciation of the past, roots, history and genetic memory is a road to nowhere. This is a story of an entire generation of lost «original» cosmopolitans devoid of national, religious, spiritual or rudimentary moral landmarks. I suppose the art should impress in a good way. Otherwise we are dealing with a trivial creative impotence and failure to master artistic methods of a particular art form. This is exactly why quotations from the past and cues to famous pieces of world art are an important component of this collection. This is also an attempt to pack a deep thought into a few laconic phrases or even words in the style of Instagram hashtags. To search the meaning of life in one’s smart phone is so familiar and topical. The author is also guilty of that.
The theme of ornament is the main one in my oeuvre and is a keynote piercing through all my artistic periods. Strange as it might seem, it all started with a carpet. My first serious work «Armenian wedding», a multi-figured composition was inspired by the great canvas of Leonardo da Vinci «The Last Supper», while the expressivity and almost childish sincerity of its images were stirred by Niko Pirosmani, one of my favourite artists. A patterned Armenian carpet serves as the background and base of the canvas, a tribute to the memory of ancestors. In the collections «Watermelon» and «Feast» the use of ornament and a combination of several ornamental systems becomes a conscious and theoretically justified artistic technique.
"Armenian wedding", Karine Paronyanc
I read a phrase in one of my favourite pieces of fiction Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and it constantly excites my mind: «They say that there's nothing but circular motion in the inanimate universe around us, but the straight line is the badge of man, the straight line of a geometrical abstraction that makes roads, rails and bridges, the straight line that cuts the curving aimlessness of nature by a purposeful motion from a start to an end.» But is the curving aimlessness of nature that aimless, though? After all, each «asymmetrical» biological form is based on an orderly ornamental system of crystal lattice, cell, molecule, atom… Can it be that the functional principle of complex Bio systems is the proverbial divine principle itself? Cognition of the divine via structure is typical for man! Cell, molecule, atom, elementary particle, this is the same old theory of infinity only directed to within and not without.
Once again I resort to my favourite play of contrasts, I oppose unexpected slits of the sky painted in academically picturesque manner to a rigid black and white frame. A complex detailed flavour, volumes and perspective create a contrast with a rigid and laconic grid. Urban lace contrasts with the air. There are no absolute colours in nature, as all colours are present in continual interaction. Inserts of gray are not random too. Apart from associative array of dirt, gray concrete, dust of times, literal frailty (I deliberately apply author’s technique and use priming with natural ash, which gives a deep natural gray shade to the canvas) this is also a reference to theory of colour, combination of contrasting colours of the spectrum gives us gray. Gray is not only death or the absence of colour, but the ability to delicately prevent contradictions, to find the balance between light and shade, black and white.
When the Foundation of the World is breaking, it’s necessary to keep Your circle, Karine Paronyanc, 100x100 см, canvas, oil
The pictures of this cycle are an attempt to make out blue sky through electric wires, informational smog of social networks, urban lace of a big tired city. The works of this collection are as dynamic as the century we live in. With the help of digital technologies we have accelerated the merry-go-round of times to incredible speeds. To be in a hurry, yet to be late is the plague of modern man. Will we manage to slow down or jump off this time carousel? Hardly…
ArtAlea Gallery thanks the artist Karine Paronyanc for the opportunity to get acquainted with the thoughts of a high-level professional about his work, about what art is and how it contributes to our understanding of life itself. Who, if not the artist himself, can best tell about the subtleties of creating and perceiving modern art in all its diversity - from replicas of ancient history to the reflection of today's digital reality.