An exhibition of modern artists opened in authoritative Agora gallery in New York on May 16 for the first time featured works of Garegin Sngryan (GaroS).

His works are full of bright colors and unusual images. Armenians of New York where among those who came to support the artist after they learnt about the exhibition from Facebook.

ARTisSpectrum magazine wrote about the artist and his works, describing his paintings as “a heady mix of lyricism, pain and haunting beauty.”

“His use of allegorical figures and dreamlike imagery also evokes the Symbolists and Surrealists, but his canvases remain firmly and almost viscerally rooted in reality. Though his themes are clearly much broader, many of the gripping oil paintings suggest a profound psychological rupture, perhaps informed by the artist’s experience of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Armenia’s subsequent turmoil and conflicts,” the article reads.

Garegin Sngryan lives and works in his homeland, Armenia. He began to paint at an early age. With years, canvas and paints have become an integral part of his life, his essence.

“This passion, canvas and paint – this is metaphysics. When I paint, I completely sink into the world of images, which for me is often more real than what is actually around me,” the artist says.

His images evoke mixed feelings, but they can not make you stay indifferent.

“Some of my works evoke fear and sometimes even disgust. But I am not painting to please the general public, and public in general,” he says ironically.

His works are full of dark humor and subtle irony, sensuality and eroticism. They are on the edge of what is permitted.

“I am trying to paint on the canvas something that many people prefer to hide, that is what makes them so real,” he notes.