Eozen Agopian

Greek-born Eozen Agopian uses recycled fabric, threads, and paint to create intricate multimedia pieces. In a very real sense, Agopian threads past and future together. With fast fashion and overflowing landfills, with smoke from incinerators polluting the air and negatively impacting generations to come, her work interrogates the decisions we’ve made in the past that will directly shape our future. Her muted color palette and the geometric frenzy of her shapes and forms recall another Armenian artist: Arshile Gorky. Afterstorm, 2014 and Safe, 2022, share a love of measured randomness with the Abstract Expressionist master. Agopian spends long and sometimes painful hours making each piece: “My artwork is very labor intensive and sometimes takes a toll on my body as well. I often poke my fingers with the needles that I use and after several hours of working on a piece, my eyes become strained.” This mimics the low-wage workforce of women in sweatshops, as well as the problematic nature of the work they perform. Ironically, these women create fast fashion at high prices, but are unable to afford the very clothing they produce. Agopian’s work raises our awareness about these issues. It peers out at the viewer to announce: “Buy art, not fashion!” In the process Agopian, like an alchemist of yore, transforms the past into something new, quixotic, beautiful.