Andrew Sovjani
Andrew Sovjani is a fine art photographer and printmaker. He grew up in a family of working artists and after a few years of trying to escape the artistic pull, both as a mechanical engineer and an international businessman living in Japan, he returned to his creative roots and picked up a camera. Since then, his award-winning work has been shown in exhibitions throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan and is held in many public and private collections. He has won awards of distinction at many of the top fine arts festivals in the nation and was a finalist for the Critical Mass book awards. Andrew has his studio in Easthampton, an old mill town near the Berkshires in western Massachusetts.
ARTIST STATEMENT
White Washed Series:
Book as element. By obscuring the titles of these books by painting them white, they no longer have identifiable cultural attachments. They don’t mean anything more than their physicality. Now we see their shape, wear and texture. They become building blocks in artist constructions, defying gravity and identifying as a piece of an abstract whole. Each image is capture using 4x5” film and final prints are archival pigment prints.
This series pays respect to the experience of the physical book, by hiding the major commonality it has with it’s digital step-cousin; the title. I paint all the books I use in constructions to subdue the reference to its contents and allow the viewers eyes and mind time to absorb its physicality. Now we see their shape, wear and texture. They become building blocks in artist constructions, defying gravity and identifying as a piece of an abstract whole. More recently they have become accomplices in my explorations of perceived space, time, fact and fiction.
Off The Shelf Series:
Physical books are the poster-child for things that are on the verge of disappearing as we adopt more digital devices. The consequence of this choice is that we are unwittingly loosing many full multi-sensory experiences. I must admit that I worry about this path. An old book has many visual qualities as well as a certain heft, a memory inducing smell, a texture in the paper acknowledged by our fingers while turning each page, etc. This series pays respect to the experience of the book. Each image is capture using 4x5” large format film. Final images are printed in the darkroom by hand as unique chemically altered silver gelatin prints.
Paper White Series:
These images are about the depth of simplicity, nuances of light and our relationship with the representation of space in two dimensions. I repurpose scrap digital printing papers as elements in sculptures to explore the interactions of light, shadow, line and space. Each image is captured on 4x5” black and white film and printed as archival pigment prints.