Mirror Metamorphosis Reimagined I, 2022, mixed media on paper, 40” x 40”
by J.M. Belmont of Artscope
Can you believe what you see, especially when it comes to yourself? In a digital world saturated with artificially generated imagery and where the polished unreality of social media is paramount, life becomes an interminable sequence of double takes. Our perspectives of ourselves are as manicured as our presentations to others, leading to a confusion of identity as the public overruns the private.
The Armenian Museum of America addresses this contradictory reality with “Filtered Identity: The Art of Tigran Tsitoghdzyan.” Though Tsitoghdzyan’s works aren’t digital creations, one could be forgiven for thinking so. What at first appears to be a show of large-scale photographs is in actuality a collection of hyper-realistic paintings.
In his 13-piece exhibition, Tsitoghdzyan asks us “to confront the tension between who we are and how we are seen.” Divided into two sections, “Mirror” and “Self- Isolation,” “Filtered Identity” surveys the past five years of his painting career: the former focusing on “the duality of self-presentation;” the latter a reaction to the early Covid- 19 lockdowns.