Launch of the 5th Armenia-Diaspora Conference was marked by the opening of Armenian American painter Daniel Varoujan Hejinian’s personal exhibition called “Peace of Art”
YEREVAN — On September 18, Armenian American painter Daniel Varoujan Hejinian opened his personal exhibition called “Peace of Art” (www.PeaceofArt.org) at the National Gallery of Armenia. The exhibition is part of the 5th Armenia-Diaspora Conference organized by the RA Ministry of Diaspora and is dedicated to the 23rd anniversary of Armenian Independence and to the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide.
Among the participants of the event were RA Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan, RA Minister of Diaspora Hranush Hakobyan, leaders and representatives of Diaspora Armenian organizations, as well as Armenia’s public and political figures and artists.
Daniel Varoujan Hejinian was born to a family of Armenians who survived the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and took shelter in Syria. Since childhood, he had heard stories of the brutal massacres and had seen it through his parents’ eyes. The longing for the homeland and the desire to develop his innate talent brought young Varoujan to the Homeland.
In 1996, Hejinian raised signs commemorating the Armenia Genocide in the State of Massachusetts for the first time in the history of the Armenian Diaspora, and he has been doing so every year since 1996. He has presented the Armenian Genocide to the international community as an irrefutable historical fact and has urged to recognize and condemn the Armenian Genocide and demand reparations.
Greeting the painter and all art lovers, RA Minister of Diaspora Hranush Hakobyan mentioned: “By naming their son after great writer Daniel Varoujan, the painter’s parents raised a talented artist by the name of Daniel Varoujan Hejinian, and whereas writer Daniel Varoujan portrayed the sorrow and desires of the Armenian people in his writings, painter Daniel Varoujan Hejinian did that with his brushstrokes.”
The RA Minister of Diaspora drew the participants’ attention to Hejinian’s bronze cross-stone called “Hands of a Mother”, which is dedicated to the memory of the 1.5 million martyrs of the Armenian Genocide. The cross-stone has been placed in front of the municipality of Lowell for everyone to see and has been named the “Mother Cross-Stone” since the stone symbolizes the body, that is, the “Homeland”, and the bronze symbolizes the spirit, that is, the “Diaspora”.
The minister stressed the fact that the love for the Homeland, women, nature and children prevails in all of the artist’s paintings.
Art critic Shahen Khachatryan talked about Hejinian’s paintings and praised the artist’s unique style and high mastery.
Sheriff of Middlesex County of the State of Massachusetts Peter Koutoujian gave his welcoming remarks and expressed gratitude to the RA Ministry of Diaspora for the invitation to participate in the opening of his fellow Armenian American’s personal exhibition in the Homeland. The Armenian sheriff proudly spoke about his compatriot Daniel Varoujan Hejinian’s highly artistic paintings, which are devoted to the Armenian Genocide and show the world the crime perpetrated by the Turks in the early 20th century.
In the end, painter Daniel Varoujan Hejinian expressed gratitude to the RA Ministry of Diaspora and particularly to Minister Hranush Hakobyan for turning his dream of holding a personal exhibition in the Homeland into a reality.
Hejinian also expressed gratitude to his wife and daughter for encouraging him to organize a personal exhibition and invited the participants of the event to the exhibition hall to view the paintings showcased at the exhibition.
