BIOGRAPHY

 

Born in 1977, Rodolphe Barsikian grew up in Sarcelles, a Paris suburb, in a cosmopolitan environment.
His passion for drawing does not arise from chance. As a child he spent entire days in his maternal grandfather’s textile workshop who transmitted him part of his Armenian cultural heritage.

Rodolphe Barsikian studied graphic design in Paris, following an artistic education at the Institut Supérieur des Arts Appliqués (LISAA), after studying at Ecole Professionnelle Su-périeure d’Arts Graphiques (EPSAA).
There he met some non academic but mostly recognized graphic design professionals: the artist Stéphane Calais and Rocco, illustrator at the daily newspaper Libération. But especially Maria Arnold, Swiss painter and also graphic designer, known for having been part of the militant collective GRAPUS, graphic designers active in the Parisian suburbs in the wake of 1968, who will deeply influence Rodolphe Barsikian’s artistic trajectory.
A stylist in the field of clothing then a professional graphic designer, Rodolphe Barsikian soon divided himself between active life and personal creation. It is step by step that he invented his own style. His computer-based compositions “vector” drawn, feed on specific patterns, which the artist weaves and connects with an emotional thread.
He chose to use digital technology, in a desire to dematerialize the graphic material, the central and aesthetic theme of his work. If his computer screen has supplanted the pain-ter’s canvas, it is by hand that he creates on this tool all the forms, all the lines that guide his creations.
He has taken part in several group exhibitions with his “Obsessions Vectorielles”.
A monograph by the author and art historian Paul Ardenne (Published by La Muette/Le Bord de l’Eau – 176 pages) was released in November 2020.
In March 2021, Rodolphe Barsikian presented for the first time in Paris a retrospective of his works, in an exhibition entitled DIGITAL LIFE, followed by an exhibition in Yerevan in november/december 2021 under the aegis of the French Embassy and Novembre Numérique. 

In the summer of 2021, he participated to a collective exhibition curated by Paul Ardenne, entitled "Hybride4".