It was more than 40 years ago that I started painting. In 1980, I created my first oil landscape painting.

I was up in the mountains, trying to capture the beauty around me. While I was painting, a strong wind knocked over my palette of oil paints. As I cleaned up the paint, I noticed the outline of a chapel on my canvas. It turned out that there were hidden Khachkars, Armenian cross stones, in that area covered by grass and soil. My initial disappointment turned into fascination. After that, the more than 300 years’ chapel was rebuilt, which is an important part of our family history of five centuries.

This unexpected discovery was one of the reasons I started taking painting more seriously. What had started as a hobby rapidly grew into a passion.