Sunday, March 15, 2009

Charles Hachadourian

Charles Hachadourian
Topographies
Curated by: Suzanne Adelman
Woodbury Hollywood Exhibitions
6518 Hollywood Blvd.,
Los Angeles, CA 90028
February 14th - March 21st


Charles Hachadourian’s remarkable sculpture show at Woodbury Hollywood Exhibitions is alive and full of surprises. Hachadourian creates portraits of physical sites ranging from Armenia , to the nearby Pasadena Arroyo Seco. The artist begins his process by digging in the earth using hand tools. He then casts the negative space with different materials (usually wax). Once the piece has set he removes the positive forms and displays them. With the work that is displayed up on pedestals the viewer experiences the pieces as a solid living forms with clotted earth and branches hanging onto the exterior of the cast forms. The pedestal pieces seem like effigies of tree goddesses animated and reminiscent of folk narratives. Some of the work is displayed down below eye level and allows one to peer into the waxy slightly sweaty interior of these sculptural forms. Some of the interiors contain spiders and their webs as charming reminders of both the mood of Hachadourians work and the organic rootedness of creatures to their spaces. Bold and fragile Hachadourian stands like the spider on a web stringing together place, genre and life into a unique sculptural vision all his own.
-Mary Anna Pomonis