Evgenia Saré

Biography

Born in 1959 in Yerevan, Armenia, Evgenia Sarkissian (Saré) graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts in her hometown. Along with her job as a set designer (over 40 productions in theater and 4 in cinema), she explored several techniques to give life to her characters, ranging from ceramics to bronze sculptures, through etching and monotype. Since her moving to Paris in 1991, she devoted herself almost entirely to oil painting. Her works are in many private collections and museums.

“My only motivation to paint is the pleasure that I get from the painting process. I feel good

with my characters that are sweet, nice, stylish, and most of all, very human. I always work,

even when I have no pencil or paintbrush in my hand, every look, every move, every word, every passerby, everything around me fill up my painter's treasury. I refine my characters, I take away the malice, the bitterness, the gray veil of daily hassles, and they continue their life in my paintings, in serenity and happiness.” – Saré

For Saré, the process of creation is tedious. Constantly carrying around a notebook and always drawing and taking notes as occasion serves, the artist paints the composition that she settles on as a result of this character development by using the “glaze” technique with oil paint on canvas. Especially used by old masters between 15th and 19th centuries, this “glaze” technique can be put in simple terms as an arduous, time-consuming way of applying a transparent layer of paint with a broad, soft-haired brush on another underlying opaque layer of paint that was previously well-dried; allowing the top and bottom layers to blend optically instead of physically, imbuing the surface of the painting with a real feel of depth and a bright appearance while also serving to create a three-dimensional look by forming optical illusions of color. Once applied, it definitely rules out the possibility of any rectification or improvisation on the canvas.

Selected Works