Sarkis Hamalbashian,
Biography

Hamalbashian was born in 1956 in Gyumri, and lives and works in Yerevan, Armenia.  He studied at the School of Fine Arts Gyumri, and Panos Terlemezian Fine Arts College, Yerevan. He served in the Soviet Army from 1975 and moved to Yerevan in 1989 after surviving the devastating earthquake in December 1988.

Hamalbashian's vivid images speak for Armenia and her people as well as for the artist himself. A land-locked country, remote from the mainstream and with mountainous terrain and over four thousand years of history, Armenia has a voice too rarely heard in the cacophony of world events. Having been consumed by the Ottoman Empire, and then the Soviet Union, the people of Armenia have been determined to maintain their identity even when they lay beneath the cloak of overwhelming dominance.

This country and its people have now emerged from the long dark nights of their history with an expressive, vibrant cultural determination. Alive with colour and contrasting content, Hamalbashian's work offers insights to the common man and woman living honest lives via a visual tone that harks of traditionalism but relates to the present day. His work has been exhibited regularly since 1988, when it was included in the Young Artists of the USSR exhibition. Since then, his paintings have been shown in London and Paris as well as in numerous exhibitions across Armenia. In 2009, Hamalbashian was awarded the title of Honorable Artist of the Republic of Armenia.

For more infomation on the past exhibition held here at 99 Mount Street please Click Here