Biography

Raffi Adalyan, born in Yerevan, Armenia in 1940, after pursuing a career of violinist, and graduating the Conservatory in his homeland, began to actively pursue art in many different forms. Raffi started painting since he was thirteen. After numerous group shows since 1968, Raffi had his first one-man show in 1976 in the Contemporary Art Gallery of Yerevan with sixty works. In 1981 took place his second personal exhibition in the "Professor Abrahamian's Collection" gallery of Yerevan with 91 works. In 1991, before immigrating to the United States, he had his third personal show with 125 works in the Artists' Union of Yerevan. The exhibitions and tours continued thereafter in different parts of the world. In 1992, in Leon Ragain Gallery, Leon France, Raffi showed twelve of his oil paintings. The same year Grand Pallet Hall in Paris showed a few of his works. Since 1992 he has been shown in France, Germany, Canada, Russia, Austria and in many cities of the United States.

In 2001, in need of space to create his large pieces, Avis Roto Die Manufacturing Company in Los Angeles, CA granted Raffi an outdoor space to work, and interior walls of the company's building to be devoted to hang and store his pieces. Raffi immediately came up with the idea to form a group of artists to exhibit at the enormous outdoor parking space adjacent to his studio space. "The Parking Lot" served as a studio for a few artists, and for two years became an exhibition space for dozens of artists to experiment their art. Raffi still continues to work here and since 2001 has created thousands of works.

About the Artist

"Adalyan's non-objective art is concerned with purely formal dynamics, especially those available through the use of collage. Adalyan revels in the texture not just of paint but of paper and cloth and whatever other material lends itself to his hungry eye and restless hand. For all his expansive, even explosive commingling of materials, Adalyan achieves a rightness - a kind of energy-filled repose - that betrays his training as a musician, thinking in abstracted space but real time. Adalyan relies on material, specifically a range of material that hovers between the painterly and the sculptural. Adalyan comes out of music with a sense of linear gesture. " - Peter Frank