As a child from Armenia, I came to the U.S. without words… so I drew. Art became my language, my bridge to be seen, heard, and understood.
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I love creating pencil portraits. There is a never-ending complexity in our faces that I find beautiful, the ability to tell a story with a single smile or express grief just with our eyes. As an artist, I challenge myself to make the viewer feel something intricate yet so familiar, a feeling they relate to deep down but can’t seem to ever express in words.
Where do you find inspiration?I draw inspiration from cinema. When my family moved from Armenia I was in a place where nothing was familiar, yet movies allowed me to feel at home. This taught me the value of art very early on. I began drawing my favorite heroes at school and connected with the other students through it. Suddenly, the kids began requesting drawings of their own and eventually some teachers too. I learned that art is a language we can connect over just like English and I use that as inspiration when drawing.
What would you do with $25,000?With $25,000 I would embark on a journey to bring people together through art across the country. I would buy a used van, convert it into a camper, and drive across the US drawing inspiration from national parks, small towns, and the people I meet along the way. My goal would to give out drawings in every state that I visit and remind people that we have more in common than we have differences through the universal language, which is art.
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