BIO
Egyptian artist Armen Agop was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. His personal history and cultural heritage play a pivotal role in shaping his artworks. His contemplative sculptures and paintings are derived from his exploration of ancient spiritual heritages, while his vision is acutely inspired by the desert. Agop refers to the environmental influences as the hidden source of his interest in simplicity itself. The endlessness and nothingness evoked from the desert are characteristics that triggered his approach to simplicity. He says, "It was in the desert, where there seems to be nothing, that's where I learned to see."
By extracting the essence of the ancient values of his homeland, Agop brings them to life in a new contemporary vision. Agop coalesces the environmental influences with the ancient cultural influences to revive an ancient essentialism through precise ambiguous forms. His work differs from western Abstract art as it is not an abstraction, nor is it simplifications of natural elements, or based on geometric combinations. Rather Agop dives into the essence of simplicity at its core. This acute clarity creates a mysticism that the precise forms radiate.
Working with an ancient material such as granite, the stone of the gods, developed in him an appreciation for works existing through time. In 2015 at his solo exhibition in Singapore, he coined the term, "Transcontempory" referring to artworks that are always contemporary. Explaining that an authentic artwork is timeless and survives changing trends and tendencies as it keeps radiating its core content. In further research, the method of his working developed into a meditative practice with his focus on the invisible, and the internal energy that each piece transmits, this results in works that embody a spirituality within a physical form. Soberness, slowness, and renouncement of demonstrative abilities are features that characterize his ascetic approach.
Throughout this meditative working practice he prioritizes inwardness and inner monumentality beyond physical size.
Agop graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Helwan University in Cairo in 1992, where he was also awarded an assistant research scholarship. He began to exhibit his work in many diverse shows throughout Egypt and received the Sculpture Prize from the Autumn Salon in 1998. In 2000, he was nationally recognized by the Egyptian government when he was awarded the "Prix de Rome", the State Prize of Artistic Creativity. After staying in Rome the first year, he moved to Pietrasanta, Italy where he lives and works today. In 2010 he won the Umberto Mastroianni award and in 2013 he was awarded the Sulmona Prize, the Presidential Medal of the Italian Republic. His works are represented in esteemed collections worldwide including, the Egyptian Modern Art Museum, Cairo, Egypt, Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE, Javier Marín Foundation, Mexico City, Mexico, Aswan Sculpture Museum, Aswan, Egypt, Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar, Boghossian Foundation, Brussels, Belgium, Giardino di Piazza Stazione, Barge, Italy, Coral Springs Museum of Art, Florida, USA and Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art, SAMOCA, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.