The Sacred Eye: A Closer Look
Truly engaging with Anush Babayan’s art means stepping into an experience that goes beyond analysis. Her paintings aren’t just meant to be looked at; they ask to be felt. Each piece seems to hold a quiet meeting point between breath, the cosmos, and inner awareness. Two works in particular, Mother of the Universe and Eye of the Universe, show how she moves beyond the limitations of medium to connect with something deeply personal in the viewer.
Mother of the Universe (2019) presents an ethereal face, gently emerging from an ocean of cosmic textures. At first glance, the image appears to dissolve and coalesce in the same instant. The left side of the face, rendered in soft silvers and violet shadows, evokes serenity and introspection. The right side bursts open into radiant golden rays and electric blues, suggesting not just expression but eruption, the birth of light itself. Here, Babayan is not portraying a figure so much as a force. The feminine archetype she channels is neither passive nor decorative. She is dynamic, generative, and infinite. The compositional spiral, reinforced by curved strokes and celestial textures, creates a gravitational pull that draws the eye inward in meditative rhythm. The layering of mineral pigments adds physical depth to the spiritual intensity, making the surface shimmer with presence. There is no boundary between face and cosmos. This mother is not in the universe. She is the universe.
Eye of the Universe shifts from the generative to the revelatory. A single eye, calm and watchful, hovers at the center of an abstract field shaped like a lunar eclipse or cosmic womb. Light descends in narrow rays across the form, like a divine incision or cosmic pathway. Around the central sphere, turbulent clouds of gold, smoke, and indigo churn with kinetic energy. Ink-like gestural markings dance at the edges, suggesting ancient scripts or frequencies of thought not yet decoded. The contrast between the stable gaze and the chaos surrounding it creates a dynamic tension. Is the eye witnessing creation, or conjuring it? Is it the eye of the artist, or the divine? There is no fixed answer, only an invitation to look deeper. In this piece, the metaphysical becomes palpable. Vision is not an act of looking. It is an act of awakening.
Both works encapsulate Babayan’s distinctive practice and her refusal to separate the material from the spiritual. Her use of Chinese brushes and rice paper is not a stylistic affectation. It is a philosophical commitment to immediacy and impermanence. These pieces are not composed in the traditional sense. They are revealed, emerging from a space of quiet listening and channeled rather than constructed. The textures, marks, and light sources in each painting feel like echoes of another realm, fleeting yet enduring.
