By Maya Margit
JERUSALEM (Media Line) – King David, a crusader queen, and Suleiman the Magnificent—these are just some of the ancient figures that have been brought to life by Karen Sargsyan. The famed Dutch-Armenian artist spent months creating a series of colorful aluminum sculptures of a slew of historical and biblical characters who helped shape Jerusalem’s history.
They are on display at “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” a new exhibition at the Tower of David Museum, which is located in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Born in Yerevan, Armenia in 1973, Sargsyan and his family moved to the Netherlands 20 years ago. Though he is now one of the leading paper artists in the world, the sculptor started off in a completely different—and surprising—profession: boxing.
“I see a lot of links between art and sports, because sports are a kind of art form,” Sargsyan said in an interview with the Media Line. “I use a lot of the dynamic movements of the human body seen in sports.”
Sargsyan’s creative process is spontaneous and relies on very little planning, though the artist does use a wooden frame as a general outline for his works. For the most part, however, he relies on intuition to produce his multi-layered sculptures. For the exhibition at the Tower of David, he used over 100 kilograms of aluminum sheets and 2,500 knives, all of which he transported from Amsterdam to his makeshift studio in Israel.
