Nairy Baghramian

[Visual Arts]

Nairy Baghramian’s practice as an artist is derived from its desire to link form-related issues with the question of content. Her investigation of traditional sculpture has lead to an interest in institutional realities and socio-political themes, as well as precedents in art, architecture, theatre and dance.

Nairy Baghramian overcomes the frontiers between sculpture and mould, object and sense, strength and fragility, organic and mechanic. At first sight, what strikes us about her work is the sensuality of its shapes, sometimes highlighted by subtle chromatic interplay. They often have something unstable about them, as if searching for their point of balance whilst accepting their fragility at the same time. Her new series Maintainers comprises three independent elements : raw aluminium casts, various shapes in coloured wax and lacquer painted braces. Arranged in the exhibition space in an apparently disparate manner, a resonance sets up between these objects with an inherent potential for interdependence and visible correlation between them. The shapes of the abstract cuboids made from wax defy the vocabulary of modernity. Their materiality bears witness to their submission to a utilitarian finality : the sole purpose of their existence is to protect their aluminium homologues, even though the latter might just as easily devour them progressively over time.