Biography
Mher Shahinyan was born in the city of Yerevan in 1965. He grew up in a worker's family and had an ordinary childhood, like so many other children of the Soviet era. Shahinyan's interest in art awoke at a fairly mature age. One day he simply felt the urge to pick up a brush and create something.
But since Mher had no formal artistic education, the future self-taught painter set out to learn the fundamentals of the visual arts on his own. This happened after he had moved to Russia, to the city of Sochi. The nature of his work allowed Mher to devote a great deal of time to the pursuit that had captivated him completely. He would spend long hours in Sochi's State Library, studying countless books on painting. Everything interested him: styles, movements, the biographies of famous artists, the particularities of various painting techniques.
Shahinyan felt especially close to the work of the Russian painters of the 1920s. He studied attentively the art of M. Larionov, N. Goncharova, R. Falk, and A. Lentulov. Their resonant, vivid canvases carried the tension characteristic of that era of great change. Into the painterly fabric of realistic imagery these artists often wove cubist elements. The painting of the second decade of the 20th century was clearly no static reflection of reality. It was a powerful instrument of creative influence upon the world — an instrument for the active transformation of life.
Inclined himself toward an analytical perception of the world, Mher Shahinyan became so absorbed in the work of the Russian painters that a powerful desire to create awoke within him. Since his work left him much free time, Mher gradually began to put his acquired theoretical knowledge into practice. The process seized him entirely — painting literally opened a new world to him. From the hand of the budding self-taught painter, one remarkable work after another began to emerge. Mher Shahinyan grasped a great deal in this art on his own, yet he also draws skillfully on the advice of professional artists that he received along the way.
The wider public first learned of the self-taught Armenian artist's mastery only in 2012. That year, Mher showed his work to friends and family for the first time. Interest in Shahinyan's distinctive paintings arose at once. Today, many of them have found their way into the private collections of art connoisseurs.
Mher Shahinyan is married and has two children.
The Armenian artist Mher Shahinyan was born on September 16, 1965, in the city of Yerevan. He began to paint at the age of 40. Until quite recently, Mher could not even imagine that he might create true masterpieces, having neither an artistic education nor any special skills. Today, art has completely transformed his life. For several years now, Shahinyan has been making works that astonish with the depth of their vision.
In his work he strives to fuse the physical and the spiritual, and it seems he succeeds. Beneath the fractured outer structure lies a subtle harmony and interconnection; in the artist's hands, every line carries a thought of its own.
The celebrated Russian artists Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov — a married couple — left their distinctive mark on Mher Shahinyan's work. They are called revolutionaries of the Russian visual-art tradition: unprecedented innovators of 20th-century avant-garde culture and founders of a new, abstract direction.
Larionov called this direction the art of linear aspirations and non-objective forms.
In Shahinyan's work one tangibly senses speed, rhythm, and an indescribably powerful energy. The artist wants to depict the world and its movement — yet conveying this through a motionless canvas is no easy thing. Turning to painterly devices, Shahinyan compels the eye to travel along the entire contour of the images he creates. His paintings can be viewed like short films: imagining what came before, and guessing at the events that will follow.
Like Georges Braque, Shahinyan too refuses to see the world from a single fixed point. On one canvas he renders the same subject from several sides at once — the very device that defines cubism, one of the styles in which Mher Shahinyan works. What is more, the artist places the emphasis on the emotion the subject conveys. His works take on an indescribable expressiveness through the harmonious accord of the depicted object's color and form.
The artist also creates accomplished futurist works that reflect his worldview and inner world, rendering modern figures and motion.
A vivid example of such work is his painting of James Brown. Immersing yourself in the recognizable features of Mr. Dynamite, you can almost hear his vibrant rock 'n' roll sounding right beside you. That is exactly how James Brown lived and created.
To make a canvas speak, one need not study the subtleties and skills of fine art within the walls of an academy. Mher Shahinyan's example proves that innate talent — and an awareness of one's own abilities and desires — is worth far more.
Only a few years ago he did not know how paintings are made, or how one might transfer one's own feelings and experiences onto canvas. But one day an invisible force seemed to enter him, and he began to create — and not only for himself, but to bring joy and wonder, through his work, to family, friends, and lovers of the style in which he paints.
Today, Mher Shahinyan's works are known among those who value fine art. Even to the untrained eye, those who look at his paintings feel the distinctive energy radiating from them. Many are amazed to learn that these are the works of a self-taught artist. It is hard to believe, but it is true: the Armenian artist, who began so late, is growing ever more recognized. His works are not merely interesting — they are sought after by people who not only understand art but already own works by celebrated masters. They are confident that the time will come when Mher Shahinyan's works will join the ranks of many private collections, for the audience that admires the direction in which he creates is large indeed.
It is astonishing that a self-taught artist commands this technique with such mastery. Mher Shahinyan paints as though he had been doing it since childhood. It is simply a miracle — for in truth, neither as a child nor as a young man did he have any such intention.
By the Creator's will, he began to create only in his mature years. Such a creative force has awakened within him that even his friends and loved ones scarcely recognize their Mher.