By Heidi Trautmann

When I went to see the exhibition one day after the opening I had the opportunity to speak to the young artist. We had met two years before on the occasion of a project organised within the framework of the Confrontation through Art Project in Nicosia. Now,  he has come for a solo exhibition curated by Turkish curator Basak Senova who has frequently been working with our art association EMAA. There will be a book edited by the curator that discusses his art, and will be launched during the exhibition, it contains reflections by several authors.

I asked him if he is a passionate mathematician, he answered that he is an architect; you can see it from his love for graphic order, for geometry and the balance of colours. His education as architect had led him to consider various laws, the one of statics, the law of communication, and the laws of society and nature.

Find hereafter Benji Boyadgian’s  CV, my review on the LINE exhibition in which he took part in this same gallery, and a further review on a similar exhibition of his.

Benji Boyadgian (1983, Jerusalem) studied architecture at ENSAPLV School of Architecture (L'Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris La Villette), specializing in urban sociology in post-conflict areas.

Boyadgian works on research-based projects that explore themes revolving around heritage, territory, architecture and landscape. He mostly uses painting and drawing as main tools to convey his subject matters.

His solo shows are A journey into Abstrabesque, Al Ma'mal Foundation, Jerusalem (2013), and Vanishing Landscapes, Al Kahf Gallery, Bethlehem (2010). Boyadgian also internationally exhibited in Jerusalem Show VII, under the coverage of Qalandiya International Biennial, Jerusalem (2014); Spinning On An Axis under the coverage of curated by Mario Mauroner Contemporary Art, Vienna (2014); Line, Art Rooms, Kyrenia (2015);Stepping over the Borders, European Mediterranean Art Association (EMMA), Nicosia (2015); and Shared Religious Places, Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilization (MuCEM), Marseille (2015).

Boyadgian attended the Young Artists Residency Program of Confrontation Through Art Project, organized by EMAA and Rooftop Theatre Group, Nicosia. He was been co-awarded the Ismail Shammout Prize 2015 in Palestine.

Boyadgian lives and works in Jerusalem.

ARTIST FEATURE, CONTEMPORARY, PAINTING

Benji Boyadgian’s display of architecture and heritage

Posted by SHADEDMINDS on JULY 8, 2016

Hailing from Jerusalem, artist and architect Benji Boyadgian combines his practices to explore the themes of heritage, territory, architecture, and landscape through both abstract and realist perspectives. His abstract works seem to colorfully mimic the state of the city in which the artist has spent his life living in, and perhaps also represents something even more personal for Boyadgian. The traditional patterns (native to his area) become jumbled with snaking and intertwined, bold strikes of color that disassemble and merge together with the uniform design of the past. This approaches the same theme that his black and white landscape paintings reach for. His realist paintings capture pieces of overgrown ruins that can be found in areas around Jerusalem – areas such as Wadi el-Shami that are disappearing under the stress of modern expansion – and documents them as if they are already a part of the past. Benji’s work, especially when taken in all at once and considered for a time, takes on a very real sense of being somewhere between appreciating the timelessness of a place so rich in culture and history and realizing its state of transition into something that we won’t necessarily recognize. How does the artist’s work change the way people see things? How does this concept change the way we view the world around us? Search through his work below!

LINE Art Exhibition at the ArtRooms in Kyrenia

By Heidi Trautmann

Line is a body that connects things. It is continuous and leads somewhere or it is broken and you are lost, it will be stretched or breaking when under tension. It is a discipline in the arts. A line may be a border you are not supposed to cross, thus separating. In a metaphorical sense it may have many other meanings, for example how the curator of above exhibition, Başak Şenova, explains in the introduction of the art brochure:

“The fine line between the self and its surroundings has always been penetrated from both sides. Yet this line determines the position and the identity of the self. In the same vein the things the self desires to sink into oblivion are pushed to the other side of this line. Therefore, this very line also functions as a tool for unresponsiveness and blindness. The LINE exhibition noticeably presents diverse artistic approaches and positions with each work. Aptly, LINE inhabits artists and works from different geographies, while rendering and detecting comparable social, historical, psychological and political realities that surround the artists.”

The artists: Ali Cherri, Almagul Menlibayeva, Benji Boyadgian, Ceren Oykut, Maria Loizidou, Oya Silbery. Six works so different from each other that I cannot detect any tangents,  lines or fields of contact, they represent images of a concentrated individual view. The videos, photos and drawings are sending out touching, impressive messages with stories around identity, the other self, a call for a new memento mori. What is the human being in front of the great power of economy and consumerism, in front of exploitation, we feel left behind and all what is left is our dreams that one day things will change.

Is this the line I was looking for? The small hope that one day things will change for the better?

The exhibition will remain open until 16 January 2017 at the ArtRooms from midday until midnight, except Tuesday..