Vahé-André Hekimian

VAHÉ-ANDRÉ HEKIMIAN (Turkey, 1913/14–France, 1997)
"Grasse," 1969.
Mixed media on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner. Signed, dated, and titled on the reverse.
Artist’s label on the reverse, Grasse, France.
Measurements: 100 x 73 cm; 101.5 x 74 cm.

This piece is a striking example of Hekimian’s work from the late 1960s, a period in which he developed an abstract language of great tactile and evocative power. In it, the material, the relief, and the chromatic density become the primary expressive resources. The composition is built upon a dark, earthy, and textured surface from which fragmentary forms, incisions, and areas of greater relief emerge, suggesting an image that lies somewhere between the abstract, the archaeological, and the symbolic.

Hekimian develops a language akin to postwar European material abstraction, where painting ceases to be merely an image and becomes also a surface, an imprint, and an object. The brown, black, and gold tones lend the work a strong visual intensity, while the accumulation of material and the marks on the canvas evoke eroded walls, ancient vestiges, or signs of a lost script.

The work thus acquires a dimension particularly linked to Hekimian’s personal and creative environment, at a time when his painting was characterized by great gestural freedom and a search for an intense, telluric, and spiritual expression.

Vahé-André Hekimian was a painter of Armenian origin active in France. Born in the Ordu region, within the former Armenian territory of the Ottoman Empire, he was marked by the experience of exile and spent much of his career within the French art scene. He exhibited in Europe and the United States, and some of his works are preserved in the National Gallery of Armenia.