Sargis Hovhannisyan
Armenian · Yerevan, Armenia · b. 1980
Sargis Hovhannisyan is a contemporary Armenian painter working in hyperrealism. Born in Yerevan in 1980, he has pursued artistic practice since childhood, exploring a range of drawing techniques before settling on the hyperrealist methods that define his work. Since September 2018 he has been a lecturer in the Drawing Department at the State Academy of Fine Arts of Armenia.
Working in acrylic on linen, often at considerable scale, he takes the natural world as his subject: sharks, seahorses, fighting fish, monarch butterflies and native bees rendered with a precision that holds up to close inspection while reading, at a distance, as something closer to portraiture than illustration. The discipline is drawing, and it shows in the handling of form, surface and light.
His practice continues Armenia's long artistic heritage, a tradition stretching from ancient manuscript illumination and medieval khachkar stone carving to the vibrant modern art movement that flourished across the twentieth century.