Rafi Chehirian — Paintings, 1978–1987

Rafi Chehirian was born in communist Bulgaria to Armenian refugees from Ottoman Bursa who fled the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. His early paintings depict human lives as if they were viewed from a great distance. In some, embryonic, human-like forms cascade over ghostly white canvas. Others, known to him as "charts," reduce their subjects to a topography of symbols. Produced in the late 1970s and early 1980s, their experimental character prompted their censoring from exhibition until 1987.

Rafi Chehirian trained at the National Academy of Art in Bulgaria and was professor of art history and aesthetics at the Tryavna School of Art from 1981–1987. He has shown in two-person exhibitions with Galina Chehirian at 108 Rakovski Gallery in Sofia and at the Varna City Art Gallery in 1987. In 2000 he co-founded with his wife Gali Studio, specializing in verre églomisé glass work. Their work was exhibited and collected internationally and his own was to appear at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show in 2011 before his untimely passing. Posthumous retrospectives of his Bulgarian-era paintings were held at Contrast Gallery (2018) and Varna City Art Gallery (2021). His work was included in the group exhibition "Open Art Files: Notes and Footnotes" at Kapana Gallery in Plovdiv (2019). In 2018, his American paintings were part of a performance-installation presented by Julian Chehirian at Rhizome, Washington, D.C.