Inside the Art Studio

Some of my favorite paintings are renderings that depict the artists' studio. It gives the audience a chance to see how the artist lived, and to what type of environment they did there best work in. It's fun for me to glance upon the room that possibly help inspired them to paint a masterpiece. I find it to be an rare, and utterly unique opportunity to view the artist in entirely intimate manner.

It is also a fun reason to collect art in the first place. As if we need a reason to collect a beautiful painting, but, when we collect a studio image, we are collecting a reference point to that point and time in history. Much can be told by making these simple "where is Waldo" observations. Like for instance, what was the latest fashion, or what secret ingredient did the artist mistakingly or purposely want us to find in the image. When we receive an opportunity like this one to peek into the secretive world of the artist himself, we are being asked by the artist to underscore their secretive world.

Something else I truly fine unique about these painting, is how many of them feature unfinished artwork. If you haven't ever notice it for yourself, might I suggest that you take a closer look at the paintings background. I have found that many art studio paintings, often do have unfinished pieces in the background, that the artist might have been working on at the same time as his self portrait. Could it be possible that the very paint that brings to life one image, is the same paint being used in another lifeless image. According to this discovery, the answer could very well be yes. Making a painting, truly more representative of the brush stroke than the texture. Just take a look at the painting I have featured. You can view for yourself the unfinished works of Minas Avetisian, and what he had been working on. Even though there are no details given about this piece, we are still given that rare and unique opportunity to study the artist more in-depth that originally anticipated.

As many of you know, Minas Avetisian was an artist with a particularly cruel twist of fate. It seem to follow him everywhere, and he was surrounded by this cruel luck his whole lifetimeHis mother and father barely escaped an Armenian massacre that took place in 1915. His folks were only a couple miles away from where a thousand or more Armenians were rounded up and shot and left to rot in a ravine. In 1972 his studio was set on fire and quickly burnt to the ground. What we know of his art pieces before that time could only be found in his Grafika. After the fire destroyed virtually everything, Minas sounded himself in darkness and mourned over his lost. What is left of his art work are just a few masterpieces that he painted in 1973 until his death 1975. Minas was killed in a horrific car crash, February 24, 1975. This intimate look is all that's left of his tangible world.

From this single painting, much can be discovered about this relatively unknown artist. Just think about this for a second- without this studio painting we would not have been able to see how haphazard he was with his canvases. But without this painting none us would be available to speculate what he was like in person. I liken his painting to a journey. An intimate journey into his art world.