MACHINA SACRA

His first independent series, created in 2020, became the starting point of Artur Martirosyan’s mature plastic language. In it, he first declared himself as an artist for whom sculpture is not only a form but also a philosophical statement. The series brings together works executed in an anxious, dark aesthetic that he defines as «gothic neo-contemporary art.» Here, medieval exaltation clashes with the cold rationality of modernity, and sacred images are reinterpreted through the prism of political and social violence.

For him, every series begins with a concept — with a question that he wants to explore plastically. He never chooses a style in advance, just as he does not choose the material. The stylistics are born within the work on the concept, as a natural response to the task at hand. In the case of «MACHINA SACRA,» the conceptual core was the idea of the religious institution as a machine that manufactures submission. It was this very inquiry that dictated the gothic verticality, dramatic chiaroscuro, tense, almost exhausted proportions, rough textures, and a sense of spiritual tension bordering on decay. Everything else — form, material, composition — was born from this conceptual decision, and not the other way around.