Gegam Kacherian

Gegam Kacherian’s kaleidoscopic pieces resist the quick take and allow us to actively engage with each canvas’ unique visual elements. The artist’s canvases are populated with visages from the artist’s past, delicately weaving together surrealist, dreamlike imagery with prismatic, atmospheric colors. With paintings that feature exotic animals and human figures, defiantly shifting landscapes, and meticulously rendered floating cities, Kacherian masterfully combines the abstract and representational to create a unique visual language. 

The dynamic interplay of representation and abstraction owes much to the Baroque, with its delirious, gravity-defying spatial strategies in which the illusion of deep space matters as much as surface gymnastics. Kacherian’s expansive earthly and atmospheric spaces, sometimes scattered with weightless acrobatic figures, are likewise indebted to the Baroque quest to comprehend the material world in relation to the infinite cosmos.

Gegam Kacherian (b. Yerevan, Armenia) received his B.F.A from the Terlemezian Fine Arts College, Yerevan, Armenia, in 1981. Kacherian’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions globally including the Carnegie Art Museum (Oxnard, CA); the Brand Library and Arts Center (Glendale, CA); the Irvine Fine Arts Center (Irvine, CA); the Bangkok Museum of Contemporary Art (Bangkok, Thailand); the Museo Regional de Guadalajara (Guadalajara, Mexico); the Lancaster Art Museum (Lancaster, CA); the Museum of Contemporary Art (Yerevan, Armenia); the Riverside Art Museum (Riverside, CA); the Belgrade Museum of Contemporary Art (Belgrade, Serbia), and the Jeju-Kidang Museum (Jeju, South Korea). His work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art of Thailand (Bangkok, Thailand); the Museum of Modern Art (Medellín, Colombia); and the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ).