FLOATING: OSHEEN HARRUTHOONYAN
Osheen Harruthoonyan is an artist merging movement with themes of cultural heritage and renewal. The Cardinal Gallery in Toronto is preparing to host the much-anticipated exhibition FLOATING featuring his beautiful work December 1st. In these uncertain and dark times, we find there is always a light. Our founder had the opportunity to get to know Osheen recently to be able to understand from a human level the artist’s vision, inspiration, and some of the works that will adorn the gallery walls. You will observe in Osheen's work, that circular forms offer the impression of planets, white spots ebb and flow to create milky galaxies, and various textures evoke watery waves, ripples, and splashes.
The most prominent thing about Osheen Harruthoonyan's work is the blackness. Reminiscent of Anish Kapoor's Vantablack, the inkiness in Osheen's photographs has a seemingly unlimited depth, like deep space or the complete darkness at the bottom of the ocean. This rich tone simultaneously provides contrast to the ethereal shapes and textures that make up his otherworldly environments, as well as offers a sea for the viewer to sink into- an abyss that helps elicit a physical and psychological reaction akin to being suspended in water. "It's such a different feeling," says the artist of the sensation. "I'm trying to get that across - this floating, other space."
The recurring imagery in Osheen's toned gelatin silver prints - celestial skies, nebulous forms, rolling clouds - are layered with textures to create surreal worlds that feel familiar but different, helping achieve the sense of floating that the artist aims for.Sometimes the water-like forms appear to be floating upward or bouncing in response to sound waves. This imagery is drawn from Osheen's interest in astronomy, quantum mechanics, and astrophysics, and his fascination with how they're connected to biology. The dance between gravity and time, the space in between that connects them, is depicted through the negative space in his work. "That emptiness is still connected to the rest of the image; there's always something that, from behind, binds it all," he says.
These voids pull the viewer in, raising questions and memories. The language of his work is of other earths and familiar spaces, but it is those deep blacks that centre his images, creating movement and giving them weight. Says Osheen, "It makes people question their space, their environment, or their psychological state.
- Excerpt from "Floating" by Corinna Vangerwen, PhotoED Magazine
Inspirations and Influences?
I am always inspired by the works of women photographers: Claude Cahun, Deborah Turbeville, and Sarah Moon.
The cinema of Abbas Kiarostami, Sergei Parajanaov, and Michelangelo Antonioni (the list is long, however).
Biology and astronomy are also huge influences. The way an organism and idea forms, the process it changes and manipulates, and the interconnected worlds of astronomy and biology are fascinating to me, and a never-ending black hole of information to feast on.
I am creating alternate worlds where memory, history, and identity are being questioned, formed, and manipulated. My personal history as a refugee from the Iran-Iraq war, and weaving those experiences with Armenian culture are also big parts of my work.
"Surfer, Ocean Beach SFO" Silver gelatin print. Image © Osheen Harruthoonyan
"Morphogenesis" Silver gelatin prints. Image © Osheen Harruthoonyan
