From a young age, Avedissian had an artistic eye and an ability to travel around the world. Avedissian graduated from the Egyptian capital's Kalousdian Armenian School in 1967, later gaining a diploma in dress and pattern making. He also went on to design stage sets and costumes. During the Sixties and Seventies, he had his work exhibited in schools and studios in Egypt, Canada, and the United States. 1970 was a particularly important year for the young Avedissian, moving to Montreal, where he studied fine arts. He also learned printmaking and silkscreen techniques at the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.
Through his work, he blended two worlds, as Arab art specialist Rose Issa explained in the introduction of "Chant Avedissian: Cairo Stencils," published in 2006. Although he studied abroad, it seems that he didn't forget his roots and decided to go back to Cairo. "He fused the techniques he had acquired in the West with the heritage of his complex Armenian-Egyptian background," wrote Issa. "Egypt – his grandparents' adopted homeland after their flight from the massacres in Armenia – became essential to his art."
In an article the Egyptian-American artist and Avedissian's friend Dahlia Elsayed wrote for Hyperallergic, she spoke about how he was "always looking East" for inspiration. “It is child abuse when parents tell their children that Paris is the center of art,” he once claimed. Elsayed, who also has Armenian roots, met Avedissian for the first time in 2002 in Yerevan. She made some insightful observations about his art and character, having a mind of his own.
"Chant made bold statements, radical declarations, and professed ideas that you weren’t quite sure were meant to provoke argument or laughter. He was philosophical, sharp and bewilderingly intelligent, and steadfast in his disdain of the Eurocentric tendency. He could, and would, reference Ibn Arabi and McDonalds in one sentence."
"He would dramatically roll out observations that were biting, critical, brilliant, frequently rooted in the reoccurring theme of rejection of the Western lens," continued Elsayed. "He despised the trivialization and disregard of Eastern aesthetics and materials. He readily critiqued the region’s cultural guardians who subscribed to Western reverence as a profound rejection of self. “Look East,” he would say, “Everything is in Samarkand, in Bhukara, in Aleppo."
Issa made a similar statement about the artist. She added: "Avedissian is not in awe of the West. He encourages his audience to look to the East for inspiration, knowledge and craftsmanship. He even painstakingly learnt Chinese in Egypt and travelled to China, Japan and Korea to find alternative connections through architecture, calligraphy, folding screens, costume and even food," wrote Issa.
"Equally, he never resorts to self-protective inwardness, or to proclaiming a culturally exclusive 'Egyptianness'. On the contrary, he has a fascination for cultural differences, affinities and similarities, as well as an ability to translate pharaonic, Nubian, Arab, Eastern and Western sources into new visions. He does this in brave, unconventional ways."
It was in the early 1990s that Avedissian would embark on his famed series of monotypes that depicted beloved entertaining Arab icons – on stage and screen – such as Umm Kulthum (his first subject), Dalida, Faten Hamama, Shadia, Asmahan, Farid Al-Atrash, including many others. His cartoonish stencil paintings captured the zeitgeist of postcolonial, modern Egypt.
"The main themes of his monotypes," noted Issa, "are the bygone eras of romance and glamour, musicals and melodramas, revolutions and ideals, beloved childhood heroes – stars, divas and leaders, the famous and anonymous people of the Egyptian socialist propaganda machine. . . These depict an era, the Egypt of the 1950s, when the country was at the height of its cosmopolitanism and Middle Eastern intellectuals mingled. The era also represents the height of Egyptian popular culture: when Egyptian cinema – 'Hollywood on the Nile' – dominated most of the Arab world."
He also produced portraits of Egypt's last king, Farouk, President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and the influential Egyptian feminist Doria Shafik. Avedissian's mentor, the notable Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy, encouraged him to explore rural life in Upper and Lower Egypt. It led him to devote some of his works to depicting village girls and local landscapes. Another part of his body of work was deeply political, revealing, for instance, young Arab girls holding snipers.
Avedissian's portrayed characters almost always sit in highly patterned surroundings filled with a variety of lively motifs and bursting colors. The motifs are sometimes of flora and fauna, national flags and emblems, as well as Pharaonic elements. He gives his pieces a finishing touch by adding Arabic writing on the bottom. Executed in an elegant and elongated form, the word often indicates the sitter's name or a specific description.
One might think that these images are nostalgic, remembering a time of how things used to be. But, some beg to differ. Issa once said in an interview with Selections Magazine: "He wanted to communicate something, and it wasn’t about nostalgia or politics. It was about how artists manage to overcome tensions in order to be creative."
Meanwhile, Elsayed suggests that Avedissian's work is "a simultaneous look at the content and constructions of those images. Most sourced from state owned media, they provide a view into how Egypt was defining itself in its post-colonial era, with both genuine and aspirational notions widely disseminated. . . The work reveals more about their intent as messaging than as popular images."
Over the years, Avedissian's coveted artworks have been acquired, regionally and internationally, by The British Museum, The National Museums of Scotland, Aga Khan Foundation, The National Gallery of Jordan, as well as Barjeel Art Foundation.
