Painting on an Invisible Canvas (On Artistry)

The day Arto Yaralyan died, he lay on his hospital bed in a delirium, his hands miming the movements of a paint brush pressing against a hallucinatory canvas, creating one final image that only he could see.

Arto was a classically trained artist following a trajectory of success, particularly during the soviet era in Armenia,including stints with the state newspaper and winning a number of awards.

But along the way something went awry.

He bacame an absent father and perennial drunk, spending most of his days in Saryan's Art Park selling small quickly painted sheets until he had enough money to drink with his friends.

As his friend and a collector, my father would often comment on the uniqueness of Arto's work, encouraging him to paint by offering him supplies and space, witnessing the evolution of his style, the tangential approaches to traditional forms, and the depth of imagery he evoked when clarity was obtained.

To hear my father describe it, every once in a while Arto would come to his door, desperate to paint, as though the idea in his head was a child in need of berthing.

And so Arto would enter, laying to canvas whatever it was that had overtaken his thoughts, and once released, would depart, leaving the painting behind for my father to do with as he pleased.

Sometime in early 2004 my father found Arto laying in a ditch, half dead from cold, rushing him to a hospital, where soon after he died.

That was the Arto's last story, his painting on an invisible canvas the final anecdote.

I never met the man but I knew him.

I knew him through the stories my father told. Through his paintings that hung ever in my home and those of our family and friends. Through the photo of him pressed pinned to the wall, a memory of better days.

Walking through Saryan Park for the first time I looked to see his signature painted boldly in black upon the trees; surviving for years after his death.

Arto left his mark.