LOS ANGELES—“Involuntary Laughter…It happens on the stage, it happens during funerals, it happens when you slip and fall…and it’s the kind of laughter you can’t hold back or control. It’s the kind of laughter you remember years later and laugh again. It’s the orange in my whites.” This is how Vahe Berberian explains the title of his new exhibition Involuntary Laughter, which opens on July 24, at the Chryssanthou Gallery in West Hollywood.
“I am thrilled to be working with a gallery like Chryssanthou and I’m very excited, because every single piece that I am showing is new and very close to my heart,” said artist, writer and entertainer Berberian.
“I think I am getting to a point where, finally, I don’t know what I am doing, and it feels good to let go. The older I get the younger I am becoming, and subsequently the more whimsical my canvases. This is the result of my relationship with my habitat. The flora and fauna I live with daily in my little environment, the music that feeds me and the people, young and old, I share my life with. Then there are the many environments I am constantly exposed to due to my extensive traveling. They expand my horizons, always bringing me back to my little corner, which is the microcosm of that larger world.”
Berberian has been touring the world with his latest monologue, “Sagayn,” and recently returned from Buenos Aires. After the opening of his exhibition, he will leave again to perform in Istanbul and Syria.
“The social, sensual, emotional, mental, pragmatic abundances I live with find their way onto the canvas. Intellectually digesting and purifying these thoughts and sensations is arduous, compared to the instincts which naturally purify them while I am painting. ”
The exhibition will be open for one month. Address: Chryssantou Gallery, 612 North Robertson, West Hollywood, CA 90069