Henry Elibekyan

As long as the day has not yet ended, we will keep our heads held high, and as long as we are capable of creating, we will never surrender.

J. W. Goethe

Biography

In 1967, he graduated from the Yerevan Institute of Fine Arts and Theatre. From 1968 to 1971, he lived in Moscow; since 1972, in Yerevan.

Among his paintings are ‘Composition’ (1956), ‘Man in Space’ (1996), and ‘In Memory of Hakob Jarakhyan’ (1982). Since 1990, he has created abstract compositions with a bright, multicolored palette.

Elibekyan’s sculptures are characterized by contrasts of plastic forms (‘Woman’s Body,’ wood, 1972; ‘Female Bust,’ tuff, 1981).

He also carried out staged actions: ‘G. Yakulov’ (1985, Yerevan), ‘Painting and Sculpture in Time and Space’ (1986, Jurmala), ‘Armenia Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow’ (1993), ‘Love Humanity’ (2001), and ‘Hamlet Is Not Hamlet, or Vengeance for the Father’ (2003; the last three in Yerevan). He designed the productions of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s We Play Strindberg (1975), Yeghishe Charents’s Yerkir Nairi (1977; both at the Yerevan Drama Theatre), and Gabriel Sundukyan’s Khatabala (1978, Gabriel Sundukyan National Academic Theatre).

Henry Elibekyan’s works are held in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the State Museum of Oriental Peoples, the Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum, the A. Sakharov ‘Peace, Progress and Human Rights’ Museum and Public Center in Moscow, the National Gallery of Armenia, the Yerevan Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as museums and collections in other cities.

Gallery

“With their expressive sharpness and the revelation of the horrific, his works jolt and touch the viewer, never leaving them indifferent. Such an approach places Elibekyan’s art within the realm of avant-garde aesthetics, distancing it from tradition.

Seyranush Manukyan - Art critic

“Henry Elibekyan is not only one of the well-known innovative Armenian artists of the Sixties, but also one of the classics of Armenian avant-garde art. He is a monumental figure.

Lilit Sargsyan - Art critic

His works from the 1990s and 2000s are striking in their contradiction: on the one hand, they contain a mentality that has already become foreign to us; on the other, there is a passion whose freshness is astonishing.

Vardan Jaloyan - Art critic

He is full of freshness and temperament, both in early adolescence and in his youth, when he headlong burst into art (not entered it, not leapt into it, but truly burst in), just as he did into life.

Ruben Anghaladyan - Honored Figure of Culture of the RA