Vahan Ananyan (1959-2006) was an artist of Armenian origin, who had almost permanently been living in Odesa since 1994 to his death. More than 500 of his works were created in that city.
Ananyan was born in Yerevan, and had been fond of painting since his childhood. He attended the studio of the famous Armenian sculptor Sergey Stepanyan. In 1977 he hosted his first solo exhibition. From 1985 to 1993 he lived in Tallinn, participating in numerous group and personal exhibitions, as well as performances (though, to some extent, his life could have been called a kind of colorful and spectacular performance). In 2005 he took part in the Florence Biennale of Contemporary Art. After a period of grave illness he died December 18, 2006. His ashes were laid to rest in three cities – Yerevan, Tallinn, and Odesa.
The Kyiv exhibition, which is entitled “The Meeting,” is going to become the first presentation of Vahan Ananyan’s art in the capital.
Painter Matvii Vaisberg, a close friend of the author, devoted the following lines to Ananyan:
“The epigraph: ‘Bonjour, Monsieur Gauguin!’
“My first meeting with Vahan happened almost 30 years ago, in 1987, at Odesa city park.
“When you have been speaking with such an artist for 20 years, even if you’ve been doing that irregularly, you think that the whole world should know him.
“And it turns out to be wrong. If they know and remember him in his native Armenia, they don’t express this in any particular way; his name is not honored as Martiros Saryan’s, Lavinia Bazhbeuk-Melikyan’s, or Minas Avetisyan’s. In his almost native Odesa, they could not find a place for his works even at a nonconformists’ exhibition, though it is difficult to imagine a more nonconformist artist.
“In Tallinn, where he had been living and working for many years, only friends remember him. Most paradoxically, almost everyone who knew Vahan directly, or his paintings and drawings, sincerely believe in the uniqueness of his talent, in the genius of his creations.
“Kyiv city, which he used to come to, opens Vahan Ananyan urbi et orbi – with the exhibition of his paintings and street portraits that bears a symbolic name ‘The Meeting.’
“As for me, his work can be chronologically divided into two main periods: before 1995 and after.
“Such division arises because that year Vahan suffered a terrible head injury, and it was a miracle that he survived. The iron strong graphic quality of his pre-1995 art work had gradually transformed into soft tone palettes with dominant red, brown, white and other, always warm, colors.
“The one permanent feature of his works, as he said, was the ‘iconic moment’ – because if there is modern iconography, it should look like Vahan’s work in its strongest, deepest, and fullest embodiment.
“Describing great art with words – is a thankless task, especially when it can be seen. Seeing them would become a meeting with the author, because a painting is always a direct message to us, to the time that survived the author, and to our descendants who will survive us.
“The artist is not here, but his paintings speak to us.
“As Vahan said when I asked about the fate of his works, ‘a painting is not a piece of bread, it cannot be completely eaten.’
“Bonjour, Monsieur Vahan!”
