Inventor painter: Who is Daron Mouradian?

Daron Mouradian was born in 1961 in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. He studied at the Panos Terlemezian Faculty of Fine Arts between 1978-1982. Later, he graduated from Yerevan Fine Arts Academy and received an outstanding achievement award. His works have also been exhibited in Paris, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, and America, crossing the borders of Armenia. In Mouradian's works, it is possible to see the traces of the Middle Ages, Eastern and Western civilizations, as well as the effects of Armenian culture, as he is an Armenian-origin artist. In addition, it is possible to say that he was inspired by mythology and the Bible. It almost directs the viewer to search for their roots and discover themselves.

There are very few sources about the artist. The first of these was a book titled 'The Art of Daron Mouradian', about the artist and his works, published in the Netherlands in 2007. The second is the book titled “Open Hidden Game”, which is the name of his first solo exhibition in Turkey and consists of works produced by the artist between 2002-2017, and was published in March 2018.

”The works of Daron Mouradian attract attention because they seem lively, cheerful, attractive, and entertaining at first glance. When people look at his paintings, they are very impressed by his incredible craftsmanship and successful compositions. His works are also seen by the audience as creepy and inaccessible, despite their appeal. The reason for this is that the audience wants to integrate it with a pictorial narrative movement or movement that they know, but cannot. This sense of inadequacy also fuels dread altogether. Fright often entails admiration. This is Hegel's master-slave dialectic. After a short while, a sense of admiration arises in the audience, and as a result, the audience leaves Mouradian's works with a good sense of satisfaction as well as uneasiness and great admiration.”

The reason for our admiration and silence in the face of Mouradian's works is undoubtedly the perfect aesthetics of his works. We can say that the basic condition of this is related to the content. These paintings do not directly affect us, as their source is based on symbolism, their effect mostly comes from the strikingness of the symbols they use. The symbols in question are images that have been effective beyond the common consciousness of human beings. These are pictures of people and animals, and there is not a single picture of the artist that does not contain these elements. In all his paintings, there are images of people and animals that capture the viewer, affect, make them laugh or make them think, and perhaps most importantly, disturb them when necessary. These are human and animal figures that sometimes seem quite ordinary sometimes exaggerated and sometimes distorted.

Mouradian's paintings also remind us of the 'reality' in the paintings of partly Magritte and partly Dali. At this point, it is possible to talk about surrealism. Because all objects are detached from the relationship of space, time, and context. They take the viewer to a new dimension.

The fact that objects are not portrayed as they are also gives the viewer a sense of uncanny. The reason for this is that objects that are familiar and close to us are not in their normal dimensions. For example, we can say that Mouradian used a lot of big fish in his paintings. It is a distance that makes us safe, whether with objects or creatures. Fear begins where the distance ends and is overcome. The artist aims to go beyond this fact. Up close, we are startled by the 'types' we see as magnified realities.

It does not paint a world that cannot be Mouradian. It just puts us away from the real world by adding an element of humor to it. It does this with exaggerated characters, eliminates hierarchy, and offers us an environment of liberation. He almost transforms his figures into a theater actor, but while doing so, it does not affect the unsettlingness of his work on a surrealistic ground, and this is where his success comes from.

As a result, Mouradian surprises and immerses us in his paintings, and while doing so equally startled and laughed. He actually shows us how good a painter he is by passing on many emotions to us. While looking at his pictures, also provides the opportunity to think about it. His works seem to be both of this world and not…

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https://www.artsy.net/artist/daron-mouradian