Unforgotten Grounds (Armenian Monochrome) • Series, Oil Paintings • Pennsylvania

Unforgotten Grounds reduces painting to its most basic form. Each monochromatic work is created from ochers and natural pigments collected throughout Armenia, including the provinces of Kotayk, Lori, and Tavush. By abandoning representation and standing boldly, the paintings refuse the notion that forgotten landscapes should remain unseen.

These uninterrupted fields of color ask viewers to remember a land forgotten. While rooted in Armenian earth, Unforgotten Grounds speaks to global landscapes marked by cultural erasure and historical violence. Territories and peoples throughout history have borne witness to the destruction of churches, desecration of monuments, renaming of places, and systematic removal of communities from the lands they have long called home. The 2020 and 2023 conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, culminating in the forced exodus of more than 120,000 ethnic Armenians, offer one contemporary example of a history that extends far beyond Armenia. Similar attempts to erase cultural identity can be found in the destruction of sacred sites in Syria and Mali, the demolition of historic mosques and shrines in Xinjiang, and countless acts intended to sever citizens from their homelands.

What initially appears minimal gradually reveals a material record of endurance: stories of displacement, attempts at cultural erasure, yet survival embedded in pigment at the viewer’s forefront. Yet the ground itself endures. Long after buildings are destroyed, monuments desecrated, histories rewritten, or communities displaced, Earth continues to bear the material traces of those who lived upon it. By reducing painting to a single material and color, Unforgotten Grounds proposes that cultural memory persists despite greater forces of attempted erasure.

2024 — 2025

Armenian pigment, oil, wax, and charcoal on canvas

Hand-stretched, 15 oz cotton duck, 1.5 in. depth

Pennsylvania

A metallic rectangular sheet with a textured surface, placed on a white background.
A rectangular reddish-brown tile with a matte finish, mounted on a light gray wall.
A square patch of wall with a rough, unpainted surface surrounded by a beige wall.
A brick wall with a painted or textured surface.
A framed artwork on a white wall, with the artwork having a textured, brownish-red surface.
Empty room with white walls, a wooden table, a metal stool with a round wooden seat, a brown canvas on the wall, an overhead light, and visible ceiling pipes and wires.
Two panels, one white and weathered, the other brown and wooden, are placed side by side on a wooden floor with a plain wall in the background.

Film

For use during exhibitions, showing painting process.

Exhibition (Photographs by A. Samuelian)

2024 — Armenian Monochrome (Series), Masterpieces Fine Art, Narberth, Pennsylvania [link]

People gathering at an indoor event with a large floral arrangement in the background, some people are looking at a display or exhibit, with one woman holding a tray of grapes.
A man and a woman are looking at a computer screen in a store with paint color samples and artwork in the background.
Group of people socializing in art gallery, some holding drinks, with artworks and picture frames on the walls.
People engaged in conversation inside a frame shop with numerous picture frame samples on the wall.
A young man with long dark hair and a black T-shirt examines blank canvas boards displayed on black easels in an art supply store, with a wall of colorful picture frames in the background.
Three velvet upholstered chairs in front of a large display of picture frames arranged in a geometric pattern.

Exhibition (Photographs by A. Deron)

2024 — Passport DC (World Embassy Tour), Embassy of Armenia to the United States of America, Washington, D.C. [link]

A group of people gathered in a room with elegant curtains and framed art on the wall, listening to a man speak.
A woman with long reddish hair, wearing a light beige blazer, is speaking in front of a group of diverse people in a room with framed artwork and a glass cabinet. The audience is listening attentively, some with notebooks or phones in hand.
Three people standing close together in a room, looking at something in a display case.
A group of people standing close together in a small room, possibly observing or participating in an event, with some holding papers or brochures. The room has a display cabinet with artifacts, a framed photograph on the wall, and a window with curta