Mutable and mysterious at first look, Ruby Vartan’s artwork represents a figurative abstract exploration based on the feminine form. Working in a wide range of mixed mediums such acrylic, oil, charcoal, and fabric, as well as with oil on canvas, artist Ruby Vartan weaves powerful, emotional images.
Her work expresses both her own inner world and experiences. It evokes the liquid as well as flame, revealing both what Vartan terms messages of peace and love, as well as a flood of highly emotional, evocative images that express her own generational and intimate trauma.
The artist describes her layered and poetically physical work as the process through which she feels most free, where no boundaries exist to arriving at her destination of expression.
From inner emotion to the external body, Vartan uses her own presence to represent a vital life force, light and renewal. Her process often includes painting, tearing, sewing, and the incorporation of unique mediums that resonate with love and pain. Works include elements of empty space which she views as a way to create and uncover and exciting new world that she makes her own.
Born to Armenian parents in Beirut, Lebanon, Vartan moved to the U.S. in 2008, and currently resides in Los Angeles. She says that her strong use of color reflects her heritage and identity, as well as symbolizing her dreams, desires, and emotions. She takes her work and her viewers into a world of volatile honesty and fragile self-expression.
Some images include canvas slashes the reveal a gold texture below, similar to the Japanese technique of Kintsugi that repairs the broken with the use of a precious substance such as gold, silver, or platinum. Other works include text, and intricate patterns.
Regardless of image, Vartan’s work exudes the aura of survival, resurrection, and resilience, shaping an experience of artistic and soulful redemption.
- Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist