"Before designing a work of art, I need to touch the earth, to feel it moist under my fingers, to breathe in its scent. This contact imbues me with our mother earth Gaïa and brings my inspiration to life every time."Nina Khemchyan
Since 2000, Nina has been shaping spheres clay, on which, by incising the raw surface, she engraves feminine and masculine figures, seemingly of the present, who see themselves deified and busy with the pleasure of blossoming as they undulate. While the faces appear contemporary, the temporality recalling Jean Cocteau's drawings, the artist projects them into places where joy triumphs and innocent nudity refers to a forgotten land: the kingdom of Venus.
To these genre scenes, which evoke a form of Baudelairean plenitude, where all is "luxury, calm and pleasure", is added a decorative dimension that explores geometry, a primitive, almost parietal "cutting" of the support. The movement of the intertwining hairs follows a rhythm that is that of the sphere at the moment when the artist imagines this happy deployment, often tinged with humor and mischief that refers to the personality of the artist herself. The polychromatic effect of flat tints of metal oxides lends an almost spatial character to the finished object, situating each scene at the intersection of the real, the present and the unreal, both sensitive and memorial.
Her world is often perceived as Mediterranean, probably linked to Armenia's rich heritage and natural environment, but also rooted in more ancient cultures, such as that of Greek antiquity.
In 2024, Nina Khemchyan represented Armenia at the 60th Venice Biennale. Within the framework of the international exhibition, she took over the National Pavilion with her projects Echo and Seven Deadly Sins.
Nina Khemchyan’s aesthetic was once characterized by a chromatic minimalism. This year, with the impulsion of the project Echo, she celebrates color. Her mastery of the duality between shadow and light is now illuminated by an explosion of colors. This new phase is the artist’s response to the hazards of modern times: a true Ode to Joy by Nina Khemchyan. The artist invites us to rediscover the beauty of simple things and everyday objects, while simultaneously prompting us to reflect on the infinite.