I was born in 1984 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Because of the growing aggressive attitude of the local population towards the Armenian population in Azerbaijan, I had to leave for Armenia with my parents. When I was 7 years old, due to the deterioration of the economic situation and the beginning of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, I moved with my parents to Snizhne, Ukraine. Snizhne is located in the Donetsk Oblast, which has been in war since 2014. The themes of war and immigration have been close to me since my birth, and they still haunt me like my shadow. Also the theme of identity – of who I am and where I come from – can be seen in my work.
My professional artistic practice is 10 years. My first professional art exhibition was in 2013 at the Union of Artists of Ukraine. I also since 2013 participated in exhibitions and have given artist talks in Kharkov, Kyiv, Helsinki, Pescara, Berlin, Malmö, Sofia, Vilnius, Madrid, Cavan Ireland, New York. Since 2019 I participated in exhibitions at Myymälä2 and Gallery Rankka, and showed works in the HIAP Open Studios Summer and Autumn 2019. Further, I gave artist talks at HAM, Myymälä2, and in the Arkadia International Bookshop. In 2019 I was a “MOBILE resident” at HIAP, and at Radar Sofia, Bulgaria. Articles about me and my work are published in The Washington Post, TAZ, HYPERALLERGIC, Rauhanpuolustajat, The
Guardian.
From 2021 to 2023, I received grants from FONDAZIONE ARIA, Pescara, Italy, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Kone Foundation. This year I will participate in two exhibitions. At the
end of May I will have a personal exhibition at “WINDOW EXHIBITION” AT GLOBE ART in Helsinki. Also in the summer I will participate in the Quantum Critic Project 2023 exhibition in Helsinki. This year, my multimedia project “The Impersonal” about a refugee center and refugees is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Kone Foundation. Selected for the Suomen tarinat project, the exhibition will take place in the spring of 2024 at the Vantaa Art Museum
ARTSI.