Across the street from the New York Stock Exchange, a 37-year-old painter crouches over a black-and-white portrait of an elderly woman concealing her face with her gnarled hands. As tourists from across the world bustle on the street below him, the Armenian-born artist works in complete silence. Equipped with a laptop, a gray couch for two, and a station full of paint pots, he dabs the painting in the modest studio located in his luxury apartment.
At the age of 10, Tigran Tsitoghdzyan was selected by Henrik Iguitan, founder and director of both the Modern Art Museum and Children’s Art Museum based in Yerevan, Armenia, to have his work featured in a solo exhibit. Even with such early success, he faced resistance.
“I had a lot of fights in art school, in good sense maybe, sometimes in bad,” says Tsitoghdzyan. “For me it was the place where I figured out what I don’t want to do in art.”
His wife and 3-year-old son left for Puerto Rico on vacation, leaving him alone to put some finishing touches on the latest piece in his series, “Mirrors.” The collection consists of photorealistic portraits of women of various ethnic backgrounds. Unlike the Armenian woman, the women in the other portraits, their faces can be seen through their hands.
“The eyes that peer through their hands is an acknowledgement of one, our existence,” says Taleen Setrakian, a 22-year-old student at Parsons The New School for Design. “And two, our understanding that another is aware of our existence.”
After spotting Tsitoghdyzan’s work at Hovnanian School’s “Art in Fall” exhibition, Setrakian, a second-generation Armenian-American, has been working on an art project for class. She believes that his work reflect the “impersonal and non-private society we all live in and experience.”
Although many have categorized him as hyperrealist painter, he claims the term is inaccurate. He uses photographs as an aid in his work while editing and interpreting the image through an artist’s lens.
“I want some things that the camera couldn’t catch or in reality doesn’t exist,” says Tsitoghdzyan.
When he is not in the middle of a day-long painting session, he enjoys playing table tennis. Tsitoghdzyan frequents ping pong clubs like King Pong and SPiN New York. When he can not find time to leave his apartment, he plays against a robotic ping pong ball dispenser.
As he reminisces back to his days at l’École Contonale d’Art du Valias in Switzerland, Tsitoghdzyan recalls taking his final exam during his art show for his paintings. He laughs as he recalls his teacher’s reaction.
With a wry smile, he remarks, “She said to me ‘Finally, you quit that creepy painting. I always told you you should stop painting. You are not a good painter.’”