Profiles of Contemporary Art and - ARTisSpectrum

Chritch
Chritch in her Studio
Foreign Faces 2 Mixed Media on Paper 27” x 19”
Chritch’s mixed-media paintings are
enormously compelling, particularly
in the way they celebrate the diversity of
our world yet remind us of the underlying
commonality of human experience
that binds us all. Born in Egypt to an
Armenian family and currently living and
working in the United Arab Emirates, the
artist draws on the beauty of her rich and
colorful heritage to create pieces that
delve into the human interior landscape.
As she explains, “My work is an invitation
to uncover the mask of appearances and
to decode the complexity of the human
soul.”
Employing a variety of different
techniques and media, Chritch’s work
combines symbolism, cubism, and
abstraction. Acrylic lends texture to her
images, while its fast drying nature allows
for successive thin layers. Meanwhile,
the technique of glazing imbues her
work with an appealing transparency,
adding depth and complexity of light and
shadow. Her use of collage adds yet
another layer of visual meaning, as she
incorporates elements such as sand,
palm leaves, and colored paper into her
images.
Chritch begins her work
directly on the canvas,
rendering it a space of free
expression where colors,
shapes and textures merge
and reform in compositions
both expressionistic and
abstract. Here, characters
emerge from the canvas,
locating themselves in both
time and space. Immersed in
rich, multi-layered hues, the
intersecting thin straight lines
and mask-like figures with
closed eyes have become
a signature of her artistic
expression.
One can trace the influence
of Armenian miniatures and
Egyptian folk art in Chritch’s
work, yet in the end, she manages to
create something entirely new. “I hope
that my constant exploratory works
moving toward new techniques and new
subjects can one day make way for an
artistic movement,” she says. Certainly,
her work brings the viewer to an entirely
new level of understanding, both of
the layered complexities that compose
Foreign Faces 6 Mixed Media on Paper 27” x 19”
our global world and the ways we connect
with this diversity in the innermost depths
of our being.
www.chritchgallery.com
www.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/
Chritch.aspx
41 ARTisSpectrum