Full Name Jackie Kazarian Nationality American | Name Jackie Kazarian | |
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Known for painter
video and installation artist | ||
Jackie kazarian echoes of survival ep 1
Jackie Kazarian (Armenian: Ջեքի Ղազարյան), is an Armenian descent painter, video and installation artist.
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Ancestors
Jackie Kazarian's grandfathers, Abram Bedrosian (Adana) and Kazar Kazarian (Tadem), both left Western Armenia before 1915, they were from Sivas, Marash, Tadem and Adana. Jachie's grandmother, Mariam Betlezian's father was a linguist professor and was taken and killed by Ottoman soldiers. Mariam's mother feared that her teen daughter would be abducted and/or enslaved, so placed her in an orphanage before she fled with her younger children. Mariam eventually left the orphanage to become an immigrant bride and lived her life in Waukegan, Illinois.
Jachie's grandmother, Elmas Shahinian, was well-educated and came from a wealthy family in Sivas. Her grandfather owned a flour mill in Sivas, and lived with 22 family members and servants in a house that is now a post office. When the home was confiscated by Ottoman soldiers, most of her family members were killed, but her father and uncle were spared for a while to run the mill. Eventually, they were also killed. Elmas became a young manager of a Sivas orphanage and went back to her home every week to give piano lessons to the Turkish captain's wife in exchange for flour to feed her mother and brother, who were living on the street. She eventually emigrated to the U.S. with them and lived the rest of her life in Milwaukee, WI.
Education
Jackie Kazarian was born in Chicago. She has studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1981 she graduated from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, 1989 -Chicago Art Institute. 1984–1990 she worked in Encyclopædia Britannica, 1988 – 2005 at Chicago Art Institute։
Project 1915
In 2015 to promote awareness of the culture and the tragedy, Jackie created her work Armenia (Hayasdan) for the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. The painting is oriented in a way to reflect the view of Ararat and the names of the cities as if one is standing in historic Armenia and looking east. The orientation also refers to the ancient Christian maps (called TO maps), with east at the top of the map, north to the left. The needle lace used in the painting and the praying hands at the base of the painting is from Jachie's grandmother, Mariam Betlezian, who was from Marash. The work will be displayed for the first time in Chicago's Mana Contemporary from April 17 to May 29.