Ashen

www.ashendesignart.com ----------------------- I emigrated with my well-known artist father and family from Armenia to Germany at a very young age period, where I lived, taught and worked as an artist for 20 years. Over time, of course, I have discovered that artistic persecution exists wherever one is perceived as "other." I've also lived in France long enough to become a French citizen during that time and traveled all over Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Australia on photographic assignments to pursue the elusive cultural elixir for cultural tolerance. Art is its own geographic region with its very own language. I can exist in this region and celebrate "la belle difference" among all cultures or I can go there to escape one culture's censorship of another's creativity-vocabulary. Either way, Art has always been my refuge. I was painting and drawing at a very young age and encouraged to find thematic material from all cultural perspectives in my surroundings. In my early photography, I learned the art of confidant composition under time pressure from the limitations of analog film. It has greatly enhanced my ability to look for the secrets that people and cultures hide in their architecture and behavior. There is a significant correlation between the gestalt of a region's geography and that of its inhabitants, their architecture and their artistic souls. Sometimes a so-called "cultural outsider" sees these differences more easily. In my Art, therefore, I've been developing a conceptual framework for a series that combines my memories as captured images, often using the original sources, and mixing those images with other artistic media. The different techniques I use in my mixed media Art are all like the different cultures in which I've grown up and the different languages I speak: beautiful for their differences but fascinating, combined into one artistic vision. I am intrigued and ever wanting to explore our human motivation to valorize "otherness," in my art. I hope to provoke the same curiosity in my audience and to evoke an interesting response. ----------------------- 2002 Graduated Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Germany, Masters in Visual/Fine Arts 2009 Graduated Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Germany Masters in Communication Design / Graphic Design / Photography From 2004 Instructor for Art, Design, Photography - Project Work in Germany Since 2003 Member of Professional Union of Artists, Germany