Beacon cyanotype artist has first solo show
Although Kohar Minassian studied film and digital media in college, she is familiar with old-school darkrooms. But like people who take their workouts outside, Minassian stepped into the light and began making cyanotypes, a medium that dates to the 1840s and uses the sun to burn images onto fabric or high-grade paper.
“It’s part magic, part science, part alchemy,” explains Minassian, a Beacon resident since 2022 via Brooklyn. “I didn’t love working in the dark or with such creative rigidity, so this is my simple response.”
Her first solo show, Solastagia, opens with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. on Saturday (Aug. 10) at the Beacon gallery of the collective Super Secret Projects, where she is a member.
Cyanotypes rely on a somewhat repetitious color span similar to the restrictive palette of black-and-white photography. Yet there is considerable room for creativity.
The process begins when Minassian mixes two chemicals together and paints the brew onto fabric or high-quality paper, causing it to become light-sensitive. Everything is measured carefully, down to the PH level of the water used to rinse off the abrasive substances.
Cyanotypes incorporate elements of collage and photography. A simple print might feature a deep blue background created by the chemical reaction accented by the white outline of a leaf, flower or other object.
One of Minassian’s pieces, “Knots from the Old Country,” features a strip of lace passed down through her Armenian family. The image resembles wheels with elaborate spokes. Another print incorporates star-shaped pasta.
“It’s like a 3-D X-ray,” she says. “I coat the paper, let it dry and place anything that casts a shadow or blocks the light on top. Then I lay a sheet of glass over it to make sure things are level.”
In more complicated works, such as “Gridlock,” Minassian adjusts analog images and photos digitally to create dense, high-contrast negatives on transparency film. “Gridlock” is composed with a dozen squares filled mostly with photos and patterns overlaid with the outlines of seven flowers, including a dying dandelion.
In her backyard, Minassian also lays out 8-foot-high, see-through screens made from nylon blend fabric, where the patterns are much more subtle. If the sun is beaming, it takes a few seconds to etch an image. Other times, the exposure can last for days.
There’s a lot of trial and error. Sometimes she will create a test strip by exposing a sheet of cyanotype paper in precisely timed one-minute intervals, but usually, she says, she can “eyeball it by the color of the paper.”
Minassian put her art degree to practical use and documented Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2019 presidential run. “It was like touring with a rock band — a different hotel and city every night,” she says. After working with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Minassian is now a multimedia producer for the American Civil Liberties Union.
The show’s title, Solastagia, refers to climate anxiety. Minassian says her Armenian heritage helped fuel a progressive political bent. The ancient country enjoyed two golden ages, the most recent ending in 1045.
For centuries it suffered under Persian and Turkish rule, culminating in a 1915 massacre by the Turks that led Minassian’s ancestors to relocate to northern California. As Turkey’s power waned, the Soviet Union moved in. Today, less than three million people remain in the homeland and at least as many live abroad.
In the 1990s, after the Soviet order crumbled, Armenia and Azerbaijan battled over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Armed conflict erupted again in 2020 and 2023.
One of Minassian’s prints, “White Phosphorous,” depicts the ninth-century Tatev Monastery with what looks like fireworks exploding in a dark sky (due to a double exposure). But the bombs bursting in air, created with flowers, represent the type of munitions dropped by Azerbaijan, she says.
Ironically, her 1950s home in Beacon contains a bomb shelter in the basement, which she turned into a studio.
Super Secret Projects, at 484 Main St. in Beacon, in the rear of Hyperbole, is open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. See supersecretprojects.com. All proceeds from Solastagia will be directed to Armenian and Palestinian aid organizations.
