Floral Minds
The concept of beauty is a burdened one. We are living in a society that fears its adoration in contemporary art, yet intimidates its women into accepting it as their highest value. We have degraded it in mass media and the celebrity yet revere it above all other qualities of life.Beauty is a double-edged sword an instrument of seduction and inaccessibility burdened sword an overwhelming distrust in the simple sensation of pleasure.
I think we are all floral minds! selections from the Floral Minds Collection, artist Minas Halaj also creates his mixed-media assemblage artworks with an unusual assortment of materials. Painting his subjects with oil, his complex work often includes tar, fabric, wood, elaborate appliqués, recycled paper, or odd buttons. Seemingly random, his compositions are anything but, as the classically rendered subjects reminiscent of Old World Masters look solemnly back at you, adorned with elaborate cornucopias of flowers and fanciful fabrics. In many instances, his precision in creating graceful classic beauties is juxtaposed against a grainy highly textural sculpted tar background that is painstakingly embossed and minutely decorated.
Son of the accomplished Armenian painter Samuel Halaj, Minas has received multiple degrees in art from his native Yerevan and has continued his formal art training at several California schools since he arrived in the US in2002. His beautifully intricate art has been featured in nearly 50contemporary art exhibits around the world, with many pieces now residing in high-profile international collections.Minas’ work has been collected by several museums around the world including the Mark Rothko Art Centre Daugavpils, Latvian and Mākslas Museums, Latvia, Bakersfield Museum Of Art.
His beautifully intricate art has been featured in nearly 50 contemporary art exhibits around the world, with many pieces joining high-profile international collections such as Morgan Stanley Headquarters New York, NY, Sony Music Headquarters Beverly Hills, California, PepsiCo Company Collection,Dubai, UAE, and Princess Anita Of Hohenberg Collection Vienna, Austria.
