Karen Vartanov

Born in Tbilisi, Georgia to Armenian parents, Karen experienced his first rebirth as an artist when he arrived in the United States and sought to reimagine the influences that he gathered in his youth in a new light. From the eclectic collages of Paradjanov to the mystique of Pirosmani’s folkloric painting, he deployed the lessons he learned from his masters and used them to inspire his own creative process.

Karen works in a variety of media, from oils and sculptures to collages and found-object assemblages. For his series “Fortune Found, Fortune Lost,” he outlined the contours of figures that materialized within the dregs of an overturned cup of Turkish coffee. Playing on the age-old tradition of fortune-telling, he preserves the dried-up fortunes on the canvas, where they take shape against the background of foreboding and otherworldly environments.

In his assemblages, he often reanimates otherwise inanimate objects, once discarded but now also given a second life in a new context. Whether taking inspiration from coffee dregs, leather scraps or shattered plates, the artist's body of work attests to the life-affirming power of rebirth.