Collection: Ara (Arbe) Berberyan Artist Biography and Art Gallery Collection

Ara (Arbe) Berberyan, or "Arbe," grew up in Soviet Armenia, where Arbe received recognition for his talent very early in life. The son of a well-known artist, and Professor of Art Design, Ara Berberyan had his first Exhibition at the age of twelve. His paintings were sent by the U.S.S.R. on an International Tour, called The World by Children's Eyes. Of the 65 paintings Arbe showed between 1970 and 1972 only four returned to Armenia, the rest were sold or placed on permanent exhibition in State Buildings throughout the Soviet Union. Although it was difficult to locate books from the west, Arbe managed to obtain and study those of the artists he loved most : Dali, Picasso, Titian , Rembrandt, and Klimt. As a student of art design books on Klimt especially inspired him. He graduated with a Masters Degree in 1981 and promptly began his career as a fine artist by accepting government commissions for murals at the Yerevan Airport, theaters, hotels and other government projects. After graduating from the University he was employed in an Architectural Office, Gostproect, where he was asked to design facades for public buildings and office complexes. Here again, the ornamental gold designs and marbleized patterns of Gustav Klimt heavily influenced Arbe creations. He would paint anything: classical portraits, landscapes, cubism, surrealism, murals and even signs. Although his fellow artists were enamored by the surrealists, Arbe preferred to express the beauty he saw everywhere in life. Violins and guitars are often his subjects, but he rarely paints men. Arbe says that women represent beauty and kindness to him, and so he began to focus on the female figure as the primary subject and object in his paintings.

Arbe's originals are primarily oil on canvas, but he also incorporates a variety of other media into his work, creating a metallic texture in the abstract backgrounds of many of his paintings and prints. He applies gold leaf, and sometimes silver leaf, and then works it with his tools and his hands into intricate patterns and textures that give his art a third dimension. His palette is full of earth tones, with an occasional flourish of vibrant reds, blues, purple or lavender. But always, grabbing your attention, is the gold, rich and luxuriously applied by hand and worked into delicate patterns representing the intricacies of life.