Vahrad Melikjanian

I was born in 1994 and grew up in Vanadzor, a small town in Armenia marked by collapse and survival. The factories stood half-ruined, the streets carried the echo of the 90s war and earthquake, and a bandit subculture shaped the daily rhythm of life. For many, it was a harsh and hopeless environment. For me, it became the foundation of my art.

My father was a motorcycle enthusiast who kept a welding garage in our backyard. It was a place of fire, steel, and endless experiments—where I could break things apart and put them back together without being scolded. My mother, a teacher, brought me fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. I listened again and again, building worlds in my head as she read. These two forces—industrial grit and imaginative storytelling—formed the raw material of my creativity.

I believe talent is not inherited but shaped by environment. In Vanadzor I grew up surrounded by broken structures, ghost-like buildings, and abandoned factories. Instead of despair, I saw strange beauty in decay—the kind of beauty that only time and nature can create. For me, art is not about perfection, but about transformation: how ruins can become monuments, how brokenness can hold meaning, how dystopia can...

I left the study of painting at Armenian Pedagogical University in Vanadzor. The whole my knowledge I have got only from my experience of painting.

I have had many exhibitions, but the most important and memorable ones were in Goumri and Vanadzor. As an artist I participated in the "Fine Arts Museum" in Vanadzor the topic of which was war. It was vitally important to me to participate there because the impact of wars is disastrous, as it badly affects people's life. I want to help people to make their life better, to give them a lot of positive feelings through my art pieces. Moreover, I participated in the exhibition in the "Style Graphic Museum" in Goumri, which was very memorable for me because it was the first time I exhibit my sculptures made of iron pieces. That is kind of a new thing for me because my sculptures are made mainly from iron waste. I think that is a good idea to recycle iron waste because we need to keep our environment clean. The exhibition was the simple one, but on the other hand, it was very important for me, because of the idea of my sculptures. I participated just to change people's opinion about art-making ways, the awards did not interest me anymore: "Art is everywhere, you should notice it".