Heartbreak Q&A Chain - Talar Aghbashian
The Heartbreak artists Q&A chain is a mini-interview series with the nine contemporary artists exhibiting in Heartbreak. Each interviewee raises a question from their own interests, which the next interview follows up on, approaching from their own perspective. Together, these linked interviews form a 'chain' that collectively asks, and answers, questions that cover a diverse range of topics: from artistic practice to the effects of geopolitics.
When have you felt most helpless in life?
Talar Aghbashian: “From today’s news, to the events that load the weight of our history, it is easy to feel powerless against the power hungry, and the media machine, where fictional apocalyptic stories are worryingly similar to our everyday lives. However, the life of an artist is not one of hopelessness or surrender. The fragility of memory following these events of war and plunder, calls for a pressing need of representation. An attempt to give shape to these events and open up to an alternative narrative.
Painting slows down time for that which matters, and asks for those who seek it, to take time too in looking, offering a breath of much needed freshness. This offers some sanity against the fast media driven world we live in. Playful and serious, faded and present, this is the honest dance that constitutes the make-up of a painting. Indeed, I would feel most helpless if I was not able to make my paintings. Central to my work is the landscape, it represents a place of exploration, and at the same time it signifies displacement, loss and longing. It is both a place of pain and healing.”