Peter Adamyan is a self-taught artist based in Oakland, CA. His work explores humanity’s lost connection with the natural world. He explores how brand identity has replaced cultural identity and what has changed and remained the same between contemporary society and early human civilizations. Creating a new iconography, based on the refuse of rampant modern day consumerism, Adamyan wishes to make us question what makes us human, and what do we really need to feel human.

These are paintings for a lack of a better word as they incorporate found wood, and materials reflective of the subject matter, from VHS and cassette tapes to spray cans, water bottles and even the soles of shoes. The raw materials in these works are transformed from the waste of a throw away society, creating decorative motifs intended to elevate them from their former lives as garbage into an object of beauty.

These paintings of shamans, goddesses, chiefs and others are a gateway into a society rising up from the garbage of modern man. They beg many questions of the viewer. What does it mean to be human? To be civilized? To be a steward of the planet we rely on for our own survival? What is it that we truly hold sacred, and why?