The Middlesex Beat - August 2003

Connections of life: the sensual, spiritual art of Daniel Varoujan Hejinian

by Barbara Mellin

Sensual and sacred - colorful and monochromatic - traditional and original - the artwork of Daniel Varoujan Hejinian is all of the above.

"Everyone should have art in their lives," says the Chelmsford based artist. ‘Without art, we live in our own shells." Varoujan, as he signs his artwork, certainly practices what he preaches.

In 1979, he left Soviet-dominated Armenia, where he had been working on his Ph.D. in art at the Institute of fine Art in the capital city of Yerevan. Feeling stifled by the restrictions of the government-run art projects, he sought a life with more artistic freedom. Leaving behind all his paintings, which under soviet rules belonged to the state, he came to America with his wife and young daughter to fulfill his need for unrestrained creative expression.

That artistic expression has taken many forms. On arriving in America, to support his family, which soon included a son, Varoujan took a job as a billboard painter with Akerly Media. In those days, before computer printouts, the giant 14 foot high billboards were painted by hand. His work for Akerly was incredibly realistic, everything from pizza to portraits of athletes. For an Italian restaurant ad, he recreated Michelangelo's Creation of Adam from Sistine Chapel. In addition, he painted the four-story-high murals of the landmarks of Venice and the contributions of Italy that continue to decorate the Ristorante Philippo on Causeway Street, known as the gateway to Boston's North End.

Over the years, he has also decorated Armenian churches around the country. St. Vartanantz Church on Westford Road in Chelmsford was his first commission of this sort. Here he created 45 murals within a three-year period, all the while working a full-time job. "Time is elastic," says Varoujan, "It stretches to allow us to fit everything in. We have the energy within ourselves to do the big stuff." Other commissions followed for churches in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Wisconsin, as well as locally in Belmont. For these paintings, "tradition is important," says Varoujan, since "they will be here long after we're gone." For the church murals, he adhered to the Armenian religion's traditional iconography and established hierarchy of presentation.

His own paintings, however, are quite different. In one work, Afternoon Melody, featuring two young women - one playing a musical instrument, the other holding a cup - we see a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors dominating the lower right quarter of the canvas. Images implying bountiful fruits - grapes and oranges - combine with gem-like squares and triangles. The opposite, upper left corner beautifully balances the bounty with simplicity: a cloud-filled sky broken by and orange/red frame-like corner. The corner also serves to unite the two women, who form a diagonal through the middle of the painting. The faces and hands of the women are in monochromatic blue/gray tones, like a black and white photograph. As in Indian tradition where women are painted with blue skin, explains Varoujan, "the color symbolizes the purity of the women, showing them as goddesses."

While the two women resemble his wife and daughter, Varoujan claims they are more universal. Every artist, he insists, creates images from his own references, develops faces with which he is comfortable and reinterprets them with different hair or eye color as the mood strikes. In another large painting a woman, with a similar pale blue countenance, holds a blue blossom. Below her a profusion of multi-colored flowers cascade down the canvas. In the upper right corner, a fabric backdrop droops to reveal a village suggested by monochromatic shapes resembling a cubist painting. Varoujan explains that the woman isolated from the city of her memories, had chosen the blue flower, the symbol of purity, from all the flower choices in the world. In another work, the younger of the two women from Afternoon Melody reappears. Again, she holds a cup in her hands, but his time she is dressed in red, sitting at a café. Behind her, swirls of shaded colors add a sense of motion that contrasts with her obvious serenity. On the table in front of her sits a vase with a blue rose.

Most of Varoujan's art is metaphorical. The images work on many levels from pleasing, rhythmical compositions to symbolic interpretations. In one canvas, from a recent series titled Hugs and Kisses, which was part of a June exhibition at the Seaport Hotel in Boston, he shows a couple embracing, their bodies blending to form an intimate whole. Painted in muted tones, the subtle shadings and curving lines create a heart shape that reiterates the theme. "The embrace is a gentle touch," says the artist, "the man's arm wrapping the woman in a sense of security." Varoujan is concerned with picturing the "connections of life," the "communion of two people.: This is a spiritual rather than a sensual painting, he says.

In another work from the same series, we see a man and a woman kissing as they appear to dance; the curvilinear shapes and shadings swirling around and through them create a circular rhythm that gives kinetic energy to the piece.

Varoujan was first inspired by the Romantic artist, Eugene delacroix. He then turned to Rembrandt and later Dali. His references are many and the synthesis of their influence has, as with many great artists, created a new vision.

The curvilinear quality and stylized poses are reminiscent of Art Nouveau. The occasional dark outlines remind us of Gauguin, while the division of colors is more like Paul Klee. The inclusion of musical instruments and villages recall Chagall. The theme of the kiss and the vibrancy of colored patterns suggest Klimt. The broken facades, and distorted perspectives resemble cubist paintings. The compositions are often a combination of the medieval and the surreal. The technique may be traditional, but the result is a wholly unique style.

Varoujan begins all his paintings by covering the canvas in a light tone of umber, as the Renaissance artists did. He then adds the darker tone of burnt umber to sketch in the figures, lines and shapes and to separate the lights and darks. From here the painting evolves. If he likes the way the lines and shapes intersect, he may leave it in an abstracted form. Otherwise, he continues to paint in elements of realism and design.

His paintings are like his children, says Varoujan. He wants them to find a good home. "If my paintings find the right wall, in the right home," he says, "I'm happy." While he'd love to visit Armenia again, now that it is no longer under Soviet domination, Varoujan is content with his life in the United States and works at giving back to the larger world community, often linking his exhibitions to charitable organizations. He has contributed artwork to benefit such causes as the Red Cross, the Race for the Cure for Breast Cancer Research, the Fund for Armenian Children's Education, and Friendship Without Borders. He has also been an active participant in several charity fundraising events, including Colors in the Sky, exhibitions at the Prudential Center Skywalk to raise money for the Wang Center's Young at Arts Program, the Bob and Anne Woolf Charitable Foundation, Stop Handgun Violence, and others. Proceeds from an exhibition at the Armenian Museum in Watertown held in 2000, celebrating 50 Colorful Years went to the Shriners Hospital for Children, Boston, and those from his most recent event held in June at the Seaport Hotel in Boston went to Community Servings, a nonprofit organization that brings hot meals to people with HIV/AIDS.

In addition to working full-time as the art director for the media company Clear Channel, Varoujan continues to follow his passions - creating art and connecting people.

Varoujan's artwork may viwed online at www.varoujan.net and www.collectorspalette.com