Seta Manoukian
Crossroads 2
1985 -
Acrylic on canvas
150 x 175 cm.
In 1986, Manoukian painted two versions of "Crossroads" depicting people walking or standing in the street. The perspective and the landscape planes are skewed with the floor sliding down, people standing on various planes, alone, but still interconnected through the background. This painting is a chromatic inversion of Crossroads 1. Warm colors such as red and yellow are here replaced with the cool colors of green, gray and black, possibly expressing fear.
During the first decade of the civil war, Seta Manoukian painted the dismantlement and survival of Beirut and its inhabitants. Her compositions depict street scenes, interiors and cityscapes populated with figures that could have been anonymous passersby, friends, family or even politicians. From the early 1970s, the War series has a sense of anxiety and vertigo in the way space is distorted. They are densely populated in comparison to “White” pre-war paintings that were deserted – except from her own presence.
Reference SM-P-1985-A
About the artist
Born in Beirut, Lebanon 1945
Works and Lives in Los Angeles, U.S.A
Born into an Armenian family artist Seta Manoukian grew up in Beirut, Lebanon.
Taught by Paul Guiragossian, she began to draw at an early age. She won the first prize in an art competition organized by the Italian Embassy at the age of seventeen and was sent to Perugia, Italy, for three months to study art. When Seta finished her studies, her father enrolled her into the Academy of Belle Arte in Rome. She returned to Beirut in the seventies, after four years in Rome.
During this period, Manoukian surrounded by artists, writers and journalists, started becoming aware of the grave political problems that her country was facing.
When the war began in 1975, Manoukian was teaching at the Lebanese University. She began volunteering in poor neighborhoods to teach children how to draw and paint. The children’s paintings and drawings were made into two books “War Through the Eyes of Lebanese Children” Published in 1977, and “Taches Rouge Et Blue.”
After 10 years in Lebanon, with the fear of being kidnapped, Manoukian travelled to LA and joined the Sherry Frumkin Gallery in Santa Monica. Still shaken by the war, Manoukian’s work revolved around themes of displacement and the madness of war. She later transitioned into more organic shapes inspired by her increasing spirituality.
In 2000, she traveled to Sri-Lanka to study Buddhist philosophy and meditation and decided to stay and further delve into Dharma, the teachings of Buddha.
Manoukian has since become a Buddhist nun known as Ani Pema Drolma and resides Ari Bhod in Tehachapi, a retreat in California.
Other works by this artist
