VARTENI: THE CREATION OF WORLDS …Freshness: bold brushstrokes ...

by Elena Moreno 

Varteni was born in Istanbul to an Armenian family. Her schoolings, first at the Armenian grade school then at the Austrian Sankt Georg Gymnasium, significantly contributed to her early development. She arrived in Boston, MA at age 16, attended Lynn Classical High, enrolled at Cal Arts in Los Angeles and in 1979 received her BFA from the University of Central Florida (UCF). Her biography has been published in the Who is Who of American Women 1999, and her paintings can be seen in Museum of Modern Arts, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia, in the College of Fine Arts, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL and several private collections.

Varteni has been painting for over 34 years and her paintings reflect a depth of emotion and understanding of Art History that is unusual in today's landscape. Her website gives you an inkling into her huge and vast work –just a quick glimpse really. As her paintings are incredibly powerful in the flesh. They are living and breathing things.  

First of all, it is so easy to enter into one of Varteni's paintings! The eye is immediately caught by the powerful sweeping brushstrokes that create each painting. We chase lines and sink into pools of colour. Bright magenta, pure deep turquoises, effulgent yellows. These paintings feel very fresh. Their freshness comes from their rich surfaces. The powerful brushstrokes feel freshly laid on the canvas. You almost can feel the sensation of painting them. Varteni's love of colour, her enjoyment at the physicality of laying their rich texture on the canvas are evident and contagious. You look at the fresh thick brushstrokes and you completely get the sensation of movement and of being introduced into a living landscape. Varteni lets you in into the enjoyment of painting these vibrant canvases. You feel that you are the painting and the painter.  

So at one level these paintings are all about enjoying the very act of painting and sharing that enjoyment with you.  

Yet although Varteni's paintings seem almost abstract because of their will to capture the act of creation in a swirl of brushwork, at another level, her paintings have deep roots in the figurative world of painting. Varteni paints landscapes, figures, and portraits. The eye elucidates landscapes and dancers. Doubling the pleasure.  

Go to her website and take a look  

www.varteni.com!