This painting, based on a candid 1970s photograph of my parents, is part of my ongoing exploration of memory, identity, and displacement.

Through the reinterpretation of old family photos, I play with color, composition, and symbolic objects—sometimes shifting their placement, removing them, or adding new ones—to tell a deeper, more emotional truth. In this scene, intimate details like the coffee pot, cups, and the cigarettes my mother always carried become markers of presence, love, and loss.

My work asks: What is the truth when it comes to family history? And does it matter?

As a diasporic Armenian whose family was forcibly removed from its indigenous lands, I live in the tension between longing for a place I’ve never known and holding onto culture through memory—especially now that both of my parents have passed away. These paintings become a way of archiving, of keeping the past alive while shaping how it carries forward.