The Californian multidisciplinary artist fuses photography, sculpture and painting, exploring feminine sensuality between spirituality and physicality, mysticism and surrealism, architecture and the geometry of form.
Amanda Charchian magnifies feminine beauty in her stagings, capturing the body in its purest, most vulnerable form. A graduate ofOtis College of Art and Design, Amanda Charchian specializes in painting and sculpture, but has since turned to photography. For the past ten years, she has been experimenting with the physical world between the subconscious sphere and mystical experiences in images imbued with mystery, surrealism and serenity.
Her collaborations include a myriad of magazines(Vogue British and Vogue Italia, Purple, Numéro) and brands and labels(Gucci, Chloé, Cartier, Vivienne Westwood, Sony Music, Universal Records). She also worked with French luxury perfume house Ex Nihilo for the Idle Hour fragrance, creating images inspired by "the idea that a particular scent draws us into a mental space forgotten by visual memory".
Acrylic on gelatin silver from the Mono series on the sensual experience of architecture
Acrylic on gelatin silver from the Mono series on the sensual experience of architecture
Acrylic on gelatin silver from the Mono series on the sensual experience of architecture
ART BY WOMEN, FOR WOMEN
Exploring the world, connecting with people, honoring and creating beauty: these are the guiding principles of this Californian, whose parents are of Iranian descent, who always keeps female empowerment and mystical sisterhood in her sights: " Strong women are a constant source of inspiration. For me, a fully-realized, self-made woman is the most powerful force in the world. She can do anything. " Reflecting this image, Amanda Charchian is full of beauty, intelligence, know-how and talent.
The artist, represented by Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles, shares her work between painting, sculpture, photography and even design. For example, she created the Lehzat table, made from marble fragments, to enjoy " the sensual arts between eating, drinking, playing games and flirting over tea ," as she points out on Instagram.
For Amanda Charchian, photography, whether silver or digital, remains a tool for bending light, while letting color express itself.
BETWEEN BODY AND ARCHITECTURE
At the heart of her process, the artist questions the relationship between the female body and the forms of architecture. The exhibition " Pheromone Hotbox " at New York's Steven Kasher Gallery in 2015 thus became her first monograph. In it, she presents 27 nude female artists in singular locations around the world, including Iceland, France, Costa Rica, Morocco, Israel and Cuba. Her Mono series, presented at Huxley-Parlour Gallery during Photo London in 2018, combines her knowledge of painting with contemporary nude studies in black and white. She examines the sensual experience of architecture, affixing primary colors that she paints with acrylics.
As for Pleasure and Service, these are images captured at Javier Senosiain's Casa Organica and Antoni Gaudi's Casa Mila. "I've been thinking about the intimacy of architecture and how curvilinear lines inform lived experiences and relate to the body, often evolving to a subconscious level," she explains on her Instagram.
For nearly fifteen years, Amanda Charchian has been inventing her passion and love of art in a constantly evolving universe of gentleness, mystery and freedom.
