Close your eyes tightly. Now, rub them with your hands. Press Firmly. Hold. Watch.
The shapes that emerge are reminiscent of what you’ve just seen. And yet, entirely different. New colors. New dimensions. A different way of experiencing what was, and is, from within.
Phosphenes is a re-imagining of our divergent inner realities. Whether through ecstasy or deep sadness – or, perhaps, the isolation of a pandemic, the pieces capture the state of living in a world oddly familiar, yet suddenly individualized. A landscape not entirely unknown, and yet entirely uninhabited.
Weaving together the familiar and foreign, Harruthoonyan pushes the viewer to question their subconscious states
In it, metaphysical realities are re-imagined as planetary systems. Here, there are new laws of nature. Fauna fills the sky where fog once formed. Starlings turn to stars. Matter forms from silicon, instead of carbon mass, Bluebirds take the place of distant constellations. A young girl swallows a star.
Phosphenes was developed after the artist experienced the death of his father remotely in 2020. It is an invitation from the artist to re-imagine our lived experiences in a place unbound, full of lightness, freedom and beauty.
Phosphenes - the luminous floating stars, zigzags, swirls, spirals, squiggles, and other shapes that you see when closing your eyes tight and pressing them firmly with your fingers.
All silver prints are printed on Ilford multigrade paper.
Lith prints are a mix of Ilford warm tone, Forte, Foma 111.
All created by hand by manipulating the emulsion of film. No photoshop filters. Osheen also makes his own sepia and gold toners.
Osheen Harruthoonyan is a photographer who merges movement with themes of cultural heritage and renewal. Hand printed on gelatin silver paper, his limited-edition prints bring together images of the micro - the sun, Saturn, mount Ararat - with the micro - specks of dust, tiny organisms - to create a new perspective of the world around us, challenging our perception of familiar sights and landscapes through interweaving themes of hope and wonder into the visual narratives we interact with on a daily basis. Osheen’s work has been featured in numerous international exhibits, collections and publications, most recently at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, the Louvre in Paris, as well as features on Vice!, Bravo! Arts, Space Channel, the CBC's "Exhibitionists" and the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Los Angeles.
