Vahrad Melikjanian
Short about me. Howdy! You see, you think you know everything about your life, but when you have to actually write about it, your brain just shuts off. Well, here I how everything began. My “rendering” started in 1994. I grew up in a tiny town Vanadzor (or as I call it Crapland) among abandoned half-ruined buildings, in bandit ruling, ghetto resembling a post-soviet environment. So, this is perhaps the reason why have an impression that here in Armenia everything, and I mean everything is half-done. My dad loved motorcycles and we had a workshop garage in our backyard. It was my favorite place, where I could endlessly mess up everything and nobody would scold me for that. I was curious to see how my father was doing arc welding or fixing some motorcycle parts. In general, like all children, I was interested in everything. My mom is a teacher. She used to read a lot of fairy tales to me. I really loved the tales of the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Andersen. While my mom was reading, I was visualizing all sorts of worlds in my head. I could listen to the same fairy tale over and over again. I have always loved creating something. I was obsessed with weapons, and exploding things. First I was simply fond of them, then I started making them. I agree with the idea that we are shaped by our environment. The color of eyes or hair may be inherited genetically, but not the talent or the love of art. The environment I have lived in resembles some kind of post-apocalyptic world: abandoned buildings of factories, ghost towns, the war in the 90s, and the disastrous earthquake had their share in shaping that world. On top of all that poverty and criminal mindset with bandit subculture. Perhaps it was because of that criminal world that I was drawn into art, because even as a little kid I knew I did not want to live like them. I would just tell myself, “Look at them! That’s wat one should not be”.
