Krikor Momdjian - Visual artist and poet
Krikor Momdjian is an all-round multimedia visual artist and poet. As an artist he lives and is inspired by the motto: ‘To life’! To create art and to paint drives and shapes his daily life as an artist. '‘As art is inspired through life, life is inspired through art”. From that perspective being an artist provides him with the opportunity to experience intense contact with ‘the other’ in order to share daily happiness, sorrow, and all concerns about our future. Since 1979 he lives and works in The Netherlands as an artist and poet.
"During a studio visit, Krikor surprises. His knowledge of art is broad and deep. Both form and content have few secrets for him... Krikor Momdjian is one of the artists who really have something to say. He paints and writes, he talks and connects. Because of his multilingualism, his stay in multiple cultures and his multidisciplinary attitude, Krikor is also a symbol for the artist of our time".
Ranti Tjan,
director Museumgouda, Gouda, The Netherlands
'Already during my first visit in 1980 it became clear that to Momdjian art is a primary necessity of life. This not only gives him the opportunity to question himself about his position in the world but he also has the ambition to offer something to humanity by means of his art. He is very passionate, almost militant, although the latter word does not really apply to Momdjian’s poetic art. Momdjian is someone with a mission. His work is a tribute to life. This is what he wants to pass on.'
Doris Wintgen Hötte,
curator modern art, Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, The Netherlands
‘Momdjian tells the story of humanity, which experiences the vulnerability of its existence in as world full of opposites and begins the search for original happiness. When one surveys Krikor Momdjian’s work, one feels oneself drawn into the song of the universe, a song of which the atmosphere calls up memories, but of which the words and tune eludes us. Momdjian’s art is a joy to experience. It occurs in a land of myth and dream and rises up above the world of visible reality to a reality in which Beauty and Truth govern. Momdjian’s art refers to the eternal. This means that it carries in it a suggestion of a deeper, unidentifiable reality hidden behind what we can see. Beauty and Truth are united here.’
Jacqueline Kleisen. Art historian, LUMC Gallery, Leiden, The Netherlands
'Krikor’s mastery takes many forms, expressing itself not only in the visual arts of painting, etching, lithography, drawing, installations and videofilms, but also in poetry: different forms are used simultaneously, making the gracious Armenian letters a visual testimony to his ancient ancestral culture and tongue. Brush and stylus are never far away from each other, drawing Krikor, our contemporary, into the orbit of medieval Armenian artists, for the greater part monks, the most gifted of whom would be exegete, composer, copyist and painter alike. Krikor seems to continue that role in our days, as the sacred is increasingly rediscovered as central to human endeavour. Many pieces in Krikor’s oeuvre resemble books opened for the reader, the beholder; two of these are present in Wanderings.This is all We.'
Prof. Theo Maarten van Lint
Calouste Gulbenkian Professor of Armenian Studies Fellow of Pembroke College. University of Oxford
Education:
1973-1976 - Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts appliqués & Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts déco & des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France (Fine arts/ Graphical Techniques)
1972-1973 - International University of Fine Arts, Florence, Italy (Design / Art History)
1967-1972 - Fine Arts Institute of the University of Beirut (INSBA), diploma Interior Design/ Fine arts (first prize, scholarship to study abroad for three years)
Works: in museum and private collections in a.o. Holland, USA, Canada, France, Germany, England, Sweden, Mexico, Japan, Lebanon, Armenia.
Paintings. Etchings. 'Artist's Books', Installations. Videofilms. Poems.
