Adam Torcomian (b. 1998) examines the symbolic weight of Armenian imagery, working through abstraction to engage layered meanings embedded in ethnic themes. Drawing on diasporic experience and the gravity of displacement, his work translates Armenian influences into abstract, natural forms. Torcomian’s unique practice of incorporating Armenian books, photographs, text, and sheet music directly onto the canvas surface, pressing them into wet paint and transferring ancestral marks, allows venerable forms to re-emerge as contemporary gestures.

Within this labored process lies a sustained engagement with Armenian themes, not as narrative, but as distinct inspirational elements. The repetition of marks, the tracing of letters, and the ongoing study of Armenian history become a way of working through what cannot be directly pictured. For Torcomian, abstraction operates as a mode of understanding historical weight that displays itself through gesture rather than explicit depiction. It is within this nonfigurative painted space that personal and collective stories begin to surface. Like many third-generation Armenian-Americans, Torcomian carries a history shaped by forcible displacement: his great-grandparents survived the Armenian Genocide and were resettled across new lands. Rather than narrating this shared past directly, Torcomian approaches it obliquely through the density of layered Armenian forms and bold, runny color.

Torcomian’s work has been exhibited across New York, Philadelphia, and New Jersey, including a 2024 presentation at the Embassy of Armenia in Washington, D.C., and is held in numerous private collections. His collaborations with Armenian cultural institutions, such as the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU), Armenian Sisters Academy (ASA), and Society for Orphaned Armenian Relief (SOAR), affirm cultural identity as of utmost importance. Torcomian is guided by a responsibility to share Armenian narratives and visual language with diverse global audiences.

The artist currently works and resides in New York, NY (2026).