Biography

Tigran Tsitoghdzyan is a New York–based Armenian artist. He began painting at a very young age. Identified as a child prodigy, Tigran began exhibiting his paintings internationally when he was 10 years old. He primary arts training continued in Armenia until graduating from the Yerevan Fine Arts Academy in 1999.  He studied at the École Cantonale d’Art du Valais in Switzerland in the 2000s and worked in Europe and South Africa before moving to New York City in 2009.

In the last decade Tigran has become one of the most celebrated Armenian artists, working with renowned galleries, foundations, auctions and art institutions, and his work has been featured in top international art fairs, biennales and festivals.

Tigran’s art has always evolved around humanity with the emotions and inner struggles, fears, traumas, love and hate that people face being at the core of the artist’s oeuvre. The fascinating progression of Tigran’s paintings is connected to Tigran’s life experiences as an Armenian, father, immigrant, and artist. His art is urgent and relative. While his work is modern, Tigran is always loyal to classical art. His paintings draw on iconographic Renaissance paintings, multi-figure monumental works, and Hellenic reliefs depicting Gigantomachy. This aesthetics is traced from Tigran’s earliest works and has become bolder as Tigran’s works progress.

Tigran’s two most recent series, Mirrors and Self Isolation, explore society’s obsession with social media, and the balance between privacy with self-promotion on social media. The works are hyper- realistic while also profound and layered – the portraits display an unfiltered woman piercing through closed hands —the natural gesture for hiding one’s face. The transparency of the hands, however, are a thinly disguised veil that only partially reveals or disguises the subjects, similar to photography filters used to obscure reality on social media platforms, idealizing their selves and hiding behind other images.

Self-Isolation: the word that has become so common since 2020 is used as a title for Tigran’s newest works. Aesthetically, these paintings are a logical follow-up to the Mirrors series. However, this new series also relates to the world we live in and is more autobiographical. While in New York during the pandemic, Tigran was stuck in his apartment following others secluded lives in their homes through skyscrapers’ windows. This series strives to capture this dissonance of the limited physical space and human independence. Still based on the principle of layering representations of a model reminiscent of double exposure effects, these paintings feature full bodies in intricate positions – unbelievable anatomic transformations, distortion of the human image in the limited space of a canvas, or a maniac struggle to escape from your own clutches. These works are the reflection of a continuous struggle brought on by the societal changes following the COVID-19 pandemic and are autobiographical for many now.

Tigran works from his New York City studio and his studio gallery in Armenia. His passion for Armenia is shown through the various events he hosts while working in Yerevan to support young artists and encourage the development of Armenian artists. He intends to develop those an art residency, a gallery for emerging artists, and a new hub for local and international art community.