Sam Grigorian @ 60

Tufenkian Fine Arts is honored to present Sam Grigorian @ 60, a new exhibition featuring selected works by Sam Grigorian. The opening reception will be held on Friday, March 23, 2018, beginning at 7pm. The show will remain open through April 27, 2018.

This will be Grigorian’s second exhibition at Tufenkian Fine Arts; his solo debut at the gallery was held in 2015. A prolific painter based in Berlin, Grigorian has garnered critical acclaim for his extraordinary technical and thematic range. His work has been included in the prestigious Holland Paper Biennale in 2010, as well as Art Stage Singapore, Art Fair Koln, and the Melbourne Art Fair, including an impressive list of gallery and museum exhibitions throughout Europe, Australia, and California. Most recently, he had a solo exhibition in Berlin’s newly revitalized art center, the Reinbeckhallen.

Grigorian’s creations are renowned as much for their uniqueness, beauty, and understated elegance as for their conceptual scope. A key aspect of his work is a subtle reference to the unfolding of a journey, a certain stoical awareness of the passage of time. This is particularly at play in his works on paper, which, in and of themselves—and through an inferred appreciation and endorsement of re-use and re-appropriation of material—are an affirmation of life’s cyclical nature. Accordingly, the paper pieces used in his collages function as nuanced hints at the past life, and ongoing journey, of the paper, lending a powerful “lived-in” quality to these works.

That sense of a dynamic forward motion, of consummate exuberance and vivaciousness, is equally pronounced in Grigorian’s mixed-media décollages. The fact that these pieces seem zestfully spontaneous, despite the extreme precision and meticulousness anchoring them, speak volumes about the artist’s compositional mastery.

Today, Grigorian’s work has evolved into a singular expression of joy, of an ebullient receptivity in the face of the sorrows of the world, reflecting the artist’s own character and outlook. At 60, Grigorian is humble and refreshingly unassuming, a mirror image of his “Happiness” series. Teeming with vibrant colors and gleefully audacious compositions, the ecstatic geometricity of the paintings in the “Happiness” series commands the attention of the viewer and leads to lush vistas of emotional resonance—an unmitigated celebration of the here and now.

Another of Grigorian’s signature series, titled “Thelonious Monk,” is a loving ode to the legendary musician as well as Grigorian’s lifelong passion for jazz. The sensual, free-flowing, and dazzlingly color-rich works in this series can be experienced, in effect, as a visual analog of the soulful, mind-expanding music of Thelonious Monk.

Tufenkian Fine Arts, a gallery located in Glendale, California, is dedicated to working with modern and contemporary artists. We present and connect audiences to events and exhibitions fostering excellence in contemporary fine art. 

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