Armen Kojoyian

Like an ancient visual river feeding my imagination, my affinity for non-western cultural symbols and organic artifacts of the natural world is the driving force behind my work. By restructuring these graphic languages, I unlock the innate energy of these symbols in organic abstraction to ignite the subconscious.

My art making process is of the moment and not premeditated with numerous sketching phases. I act solely as a conduit not a manipulator of the imagery flow. Form and color force themselves magically on to the surfaces which I work.

I use a variety of oil bars, oil pastels, pastels, oil paint, and various marking implements as the materials for my work. I compose this media mostly by finger-tips, brushes, and rags while using thinners, and glazing mediums to achieve a rich painterly surface on archival paper, canvas, and wood panels.

Armen Kojoyian is an American artist, born in 1953 in Washington, DC. From his early years growing up in New England, Armen has always been dedicated to producing art and design. As a teenager, he learned to paint from Paul Rahilly at the historic Fenway Studios of Boston. His studies as a BFA painting major at University of Rhode Island were informed by the sculptural and biomorphic forms in the work of professors Susan Heideman and Richard Calabro.

Armen redirected his professional career towards graphic design and illustration in the MFA of Design program at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, where he studied under Hans Van Dyck. Armen thrived in the publishing field as Designer/Art Director at McGraw Hill Companies, Simon and Schuster and several other publishing firms where he garnered several industry awards for his graphic design and illustration work.

Armen renewed his dialogue of the image-making process in classes at the Art Students League of NY with the late George Cannata and Larry Poons. Armen’s work subsequently surged in a expression of organic abstraction.

Armen’s artworks create the possibility of recognizable forms in a instant, yet these forms can vanish into deformity in the next glance. The ...

Exhibitions

2015 – Spectrum Miami 2015 at Miami Art Week

2015 – “Art in Fall” group show at Hovnanian School, New Milford, NJ

2015 – Artexpo 2015 at Pier 94 NYC

2009 – Gallery 77, New York City “Ambient Relics” paintings (one-man show)

2008 – Gallery 77, New York City “Garden of Morphic Resonance” works on paper (one-man show)

2004 – AIGA sponsored San Diego Society of Illustrators, private artworks group show

2004 – ArtWalk San Diego, Joseph David Gallery, San Diego, CA (group show)

2002 – Maryland Art Place,”Out of Order” (group show) Baltimore, MD

2002 – Tatiana LTD Gallery, Glenelg, MD (one-man show)

1996 – Firedworks Gallery, Alamosa, CO (group show)

1985 – Mussavi Art Gallery, NY,NY (group show)



Awards

1996 – Award of Merit, Manhattan Arts International Fifth Annual competition

Commissions

1990 – Prototype Design, Providence, RI

1989 – Instrumentation Laboratories (An Allied Company), Lexington, MA

1980 – Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Boston, MA

Guest Speaker

1996 – Pratt Institute or Art, Brooklyn, NY

1988,1992 – Parsons School of Design, New York, NY

Instructor

1983 – Butera School of Art, Boston, MA



Education

1977 – University of M...