How would you describe your work to somebody who has by no means seen it? I’d say it’s by some means investigative and sculptural, attentive to the zeitgeist of the world. A continuing expression of the depths of the psychic house each private and collective. Visually it’s daring and colourful, or mushy and dreamy relying on the topic.  

What’s at present inspiring you? I like to see extra open doorways for variety and coloration in artwork house. Extra instruments and help which can be shifting the notion of a ravenous artist. This shift within the visible world, and never solely that, is breaking many boundaries that have not been questioned earlier than. Whereas trying on the AI house the place largely unaware content material is produced (not to name all of it artwork) it makes me consider the definition of artwork itself. Crafting objects has been the earliest expression of artwork, that actually interprets as ‘talent’ from Latin. Right now, the talent is expressed utilizing numerous technological mediums. However the AI generated expression for instance is questionable for me, largely due to the shortage of human contact to it. I deeply respect and admire craftsmanship. 

 

 LIA BEKYAN – Star Sketches, #5 Untitled, above the Island of Hawaii, 2023

I’m outraged when an AI generated picture is titled as ‘paintings’ or “pictures collection”; regardless of how skilfully you’ll be able to put your creativeness into key phrases for the machine to supply one thing from present information, if it doesn’t have your soul in it, it’s not creative. On the similar time it’s additionally fascinating how this will probably be refined in time and what is going to emerge out of it as one thing of an inventive worth. Established artwork and pictures platforms and artists begin to give it a voice as one thing unavoidable, romanticize it, however it’s clumsy, just like the pictures medium when it began. 

To start with it’s all the time darkish, however my prayer is to nonetheless have a standard sense and consciousness when bringing something into this valuable world, as a result of artwork has an immense energy, and normally good things has a bit of your soul in it. So all this ‘ARTtificial’ chaos is definitely inspiring me to belief much more in my very own strategy of creation whereas embracing the fixed change.

 

LIA BEKYAN – Window to Eternity, 2019 

What made you wish to grow to be an artist? As a child I beloved my older sister’s watercolors. Each time she was away I’d seize a brush and paint daring coloration rainbows at our kitchen desk. I beloved colours! I used to be 4-years-old. My love for it was simply there. Once they requested what I needed to grow to be after I grew up, I all the time mentioned a painter. At an early age I additionally found the medium of pictures, because of my father who was an artist himself and would arrange his darkroom within the rest room, and we had many pictures at dwelling. As an grownup I used to be by no means assured sufficient to pursue a profession as a painter having  this strict taboo in my head across the phrase artist itself that was equal to poor, egocentric, not critical. 

That’s how I used to be raised, the way it was seen in my society at the moment. So portray remained as a ardour fairly than a profession, however my creative expressions by no means stopped manifesting themselves by way of design, music, writing and lastly pictures. In that sense I’ve all the time been an artist who has limitless ardour in crafting stunning issues, drastically influenced by my mom who could make virtually something along with her palms, and at present making her personal style clothes for girls. 

Solely lately after I put collectively the “Window to Eternity” collection as purely an expression of my senses and observations about life by way of my very own religious expertise I felt that sure, I’m an artist and there will be little question about it. But it’s nonetheless uncomfortable typically to say it out loud, partially as a result of I additionally do many different issues. Possibly I’ll finish my life as a painter!

LIA BEKYAN – Double Imaginative and prescient, 2019

What was your earliest artwork creation? As I bear in mind it was a rainbow portray with daring, yellow, orange and inexperienced round stripes and a tiny flower rising proper from the underside of the paper into the rainbow. My father framed it and that was the primary time I felt proud that what I made was actually beloved.

The place do you slot in, who do you suppose you belong alongside? The primal belonging I expertise is after I’m in nature, within the water. That is dwelling. It jogs my memory the place I come from, and that every one people are only one huge household. In that sense I am self-sufficient and have all the time been like that. Within the current second it’s my neighborhood of like-minded, creative and progressive individuals, soul associates, the place I discover most connections, inspiration and suggestions. And my household is the place my coronary heart belongs regardless of how difficult it may be.

 

 LIA BEKYAN – Star Sketches, #6 Untitled, above the Island of Hawaii, 2023

What do you concentrate on while you’re creating? I do not suppose a lot within the act of creation however fairly feeling it. Most considering occurs after I {photograph} or paint, kind of a mirrored image on what occurred and what I felt. That is when the unique factor can get full or too distorted as soon as I begin to make sense of it with phrases. I’m very acutely aware about that. Usually work statements say all of it, leaving nothing to the precise visuals to inform, and that delicate steadiness of visuals and phrases finishing one another is what I hope to realize when considering.

 

LIA BEKYAN – Double Imaginative and prescient, 2019

Are you able to management the place the method takes you? Sure, solely after photographing I’ve a greater visible understanding of what it’s about and begin to put it collectively on a sensory degree on how this could feel and look like, what are the phrases I wish to additionally specific, after which I get into the technicality of it. I did a collaborative work in Might 2022 with author artist Ikenna once we simply went to the seashore in Fort Tilden to create, not a lot verbalizing on what precisely we’re going to do however certainly each of us had this interior urge to specific one thing that desires to return out, that ache of progress. 

This was difficult as the reality was divided into two life storylines and creative visions. The will to manage the narrative was sturdy for each of us. That is after I let go of the management and let or not it’s as is. Wanting again now I see the great thing about it and the way one knowledgeable one other. It’s an ongoing undertaking in regards to the “Freedom of Motion” that can also be a hyperlink within the journey.

 

LIA BEKYAN – Star Sketches, #4 Untitled, above the Island of Hawaii, 2023

Might you describe your course of, or a typical working day? Just lately it begins with meditation, a cup of cacao and prayer, ideally earlier than 6am. Then I focus extra on precedence duties to have peace of thoughts later within the day and to let it circulate extra freely, particularly at first of a undertaking. It’s by no means typical, and the ‘aha!’ moments can come anytime, even after I’m asleep. If not photographing I then get out of the home and go to my neighborhood cafe and work on artistic duties like researching, brainstorming, writing or engaged on picture picks that, later that night, I get to edit in my dwelling studio. I additionally prioritize a yoga class virtually each day to maneuver and detach from unhealthy obsessions when wanted. My favourite half is after I get to go to my native print store to check some print variations. My superb course of I try for may have solely 2-3 hours of pc time and extra analog work experiments in a much bigger house the place I can transfer unrestricted. 

 

LIA BEKYAN – Window To Eternity, 2020

How does your work match collectively – is there a journey you’ll be able to see? Sure, it’s undoubtedly one mysterious journey and I by no means know what’s subsequent. I believe the underlying pressure of all of it for me is liberation, unlocking the next consciousness, and utilizing my artwork as storytelling. Ranging from portraits after I photographed individuals rather a lot and was deeply inquisitive about human essence as I used to be additionally studying about self. Ultimately it shifted extra in direction of nature, landscapes and documentary, as I used to be going by way of a significant awakening section, processing traumas and increasingly more experiencing life within the current second and didn’t have a lot want in human interplay or staged pictures. 

 

LIA BEKYAN – Star Sketches, #3 Untitled, above the Island of Hawaii, 2023

“DoubleVision” adopted by the “Window to Eternity” collection is the reflection of this section in my life. Generally, after I’m feeling stagnant for a protracted time period it makes me suppose that possibly I’m finished with this medium, possibly I ought to let go for now and choose up one thing new. After which instantly one thing emerges – just like the current collection “Star Sketches” as a continuation of this mysterious journey. I’m studying to give up to this course of and to not pressure myself to create. Generally I create one thing and don’t perceive it, like if I’m forward of time after which this work resurfaces and makes good sense in its proper time. 

What ought to individuals search for in your work and what do you hope they could get out of your artwork? Magnificence, peace, inspiration, and therapeutic.

 

LIA BEKYAN – Window to Eternity, 2019

What are the bits of being a high-quality artist you wrestle with? Oh this query is huge. It’s one thing I’ve been reflecting upon a lot recently. I believe personally it’s the acceptance of being one, then to have a perception that what I create really issues to somebody. It’s been simple to say I’m a photographer, designer, producer, artwork director as these have been extra “down to earth” or regular and have a direct suggestions from the opposite facet. I nonetheless love creating in these capacities, and over the previous 14 years it has helped me to achieve many abilities and discover my creative fashion. 

However to say I’m a high-quality artist places a higher strain on me because it needs to be utterly honest, no matter it’s. Whereas you should still create with freedom and coronary heart for a business work there’ll all the time be a distortion of your reality. I believe when individuals connect with and admire that reality, that excessive vulnerability is when you’re a real high-quality artist. 

Something from the only admiration of nature to extra advanced psychic expressions – that alternate is completely vital, and the wrestle comes with the shortage of it or invulnerability; that as a substitute comes from the worry of rejection. Most likely the commonest one for artists.

 

LIA BEKYAN – Double Imaginative and prescient, 2019

Are you able to inform us a bit of about three of your works on Artspace?

The {photograph} of overlapping rocks on the seashore from the “Double Imaginative and prescient” collection is taken after I started to ask myself the larger existential questions. I had been taking double publicity photos very often at the moment and felt that it displays my interior and collective state.  

This was in the midst of 2019 and a few kind of interior disaster was arising. When this collection got here collectively later in 2020, I used to be coping with post-traumatic existence, id dismantling, along with your entire shift that got here with the pandemic. That made this work so related. Because it says in “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” by Nietzsche, “Preserve your highest hope holy”. That was my underlying prayer on this course of.

 

LIA BEKYAN – Double Imaginative and prescient, 2019

 

This {photograph} taken at Santa Monica Pier in 2019 was a fair gray day. Whereas the overcrowded scenes felt bitter and overwhelming as I used to be eager about the regardless exploitation of our nature and the polluted surroundings people create with it; the second I look by way of the digital camera lens is the second of absolute acceptance of all as is. 

“All issues are in course of, rising and returning. Returning to the basis is like in search of tranquillity; it’s transferring in direction of future. To maneuver in direction of future is like eternity. To know eternity is enlightenment, and to not acknowledge eternity brings dysfunction and evil.”(textual content fragment about Tao by Lao Tzu). Thus the title “Window to Eternity”.

 

LIA BEKYAN – Window to Eternity, 2019

 

“When gazing on the stars lengthy sufficient, put these senses into writing or include it in artwork.” This message got here into my dream so clear that it woke me up and instantly made me take into consideration the celebs I photographed in Hawaii only in the near past. The collection known as “Star Sketches” which is a straightforward exploration of the evening sky as a part of me and all the best way round. Because the lengthy publicity ‘extends time’ I used these seconds to maneuver slowly like a dance and created these traces that I like to consider as these 80,000 years or so of a distance. I needed to seize this sense of unity in a method that it doesn’t come out as a traditional lengthy publicity evening sky picture however to get nearer, extra intimate.

 

LIA BEKYAN – Window to Eternity, 2019

Do you accumulate artwork your self or one thing that you simply contemplate artwork? If that’s the case, what have you ever purchased recently? These days I purchased this small possibly 8×8 black and white print of three tiny flowers on a department from an analog photographer, Dawa Norbu who has arrange his store on the streets in my neighborhood. It greets me after I enter and exit dwelling and jogs my memory of the great thing about simplicity and radiates a delicate spirit. I adore it a lot. 

It occurs not often although, as I don’t wish to personal too many issues and have a reasonably minimal house, however I’m very obsessed with discovering new artists and watching their work develop in addition to supporting my artist associates. It involves me intuitively that I instantly acknowledge a bit that incorporates one thing past the creator herself, crafted with a spirit. Ultimately I want to have these works as a one huge assortment not on my partitions however on the areas that want it essentially the most.

See extra of Lia Bekyan’s work on her artist web page on Artspace.



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