The Heart cry of Armand Tatossian for New York

Texte de Doris Blanchet Vasiloff, Parcours 2002

Armand T atossian wanted to create something joyous, ortunately, messages of hope, positive action, willpower, lots of willpower. The will not to forget, the will to forgive, to reflect, to understand, to prevent and to heal. But how to heal the hurt? Through love, of course. Love seems to be the first and final solution, the only way to stop the violence from hemorrhaging on a world scale.

So, say Pierre Antoine Tremblay, painter, agent and gallery owner, and Armand Tatossian, painter, in a 165 page book that combines full color reproductions of paintings with written essays. The book, entitled New York by/par Tatossian, is pleasant and moving, like life itself can and should be. He lays claim to life with each bold stroke of his palette, thick with oil and full of heart, exemplified by the painting From Dust To Life which appears both on the cover and the back of the book. A work of great beauty, gentle, full of nuance and harmony, from which surges the skeleton of a tree, the tree of life. Like the phoenix rising from its ashes, New York is starting life anew. Among faded ochres, grays, browns, yellows and greens, small sections of blue sky trace a path, like a stained glass window that comes to life when struck by light, illumi-nated from within. Paintings fill page after page in succession, with little resemblance between them. In one painting, for exam-ple, the twin towers of the World Trade Center appear at the end of a small unassuming street, phantom-like, bluish, pallid, yet a solid presence.

It was following a short stay in New York in October 2001, while visiting a friend who was sad and depressed, that Tatossian felt the need to tell all New Yorkers – representatives of all the world's peoples - that they must raise their heads high and begin rebuilding a sense of love and peace. Educate the young, distance them from violence made commonplace, incite them to voice their opposition against murders that are perpetrated every moment on this planet. Enough is enough. What we want is Peace, Love and Beauty.

Together, Armand Tatossian and Pierre Antoine Tremblay strove to recreate New York's urban beauty as well as its true nature, that of its parks, its rivers, its architecture reflecting a very recent past, but also a present constructed of millions of immigrants who have planted roots in the megalopolis. Looking through the book, we are impregnated with its sense of serenity, and although we may feel moved by a particular image or phrase, our sense of inner calm remains undisturbed. This is an important book (it will be translated into at least eight languages) that expresses both the artist's talent and his spiritual vision of a major histo-rical tragedy. It is a cry, a suppli-cation: "Protect the land of our children. Humans unite, extricate yourselves from chaos. Rise above the cloud of dust and take form again, form that will give birth to the future of a New Humanity."