One needs inner independence in order to leave in peace and create in this life, which is full of conditions and violence. The real independence does not come with intrigues and noise, it is a quiet and conscious thing. Inner independence is a value, which is very important for any artist and it is not too much characteristic to artists famous in the public. Art pieces can have influence only if they are created without lie and deception (or self-delusion, which is more dangerous).
When you see the paintings of painter Marine Dilanyan, you understand that her art is real and very fragile because you can talk to her creations, catch the silence and wisdom in them, when the “habitants of her pictures” are telling you their stories. Marine Dilanyan’s paintings are reflecting “us”, our city, our modern mythology, dreams and music (The City, The Pianist, The Musician, Birds).
There is no need to talk about Marine Dilanyan’s pictures; we can talk about the impressions. This impression stays in souls for a long time and becomes stimulus for finding the own way. An old lady fills a cup with tea, her hair is tied aristocratically and her neck is turned to side. It seems that the lady in the picture symbolizes adoration. Filling the cup with tea is a ritual for her, which serves her traditions and family. The human being does not make the surrounding world serve him/her, but serves for the surrounding world.
“There is a great dignity in those who are doing, making. And now those who can do and make it are not with us, they have disappeared those who want to make it,” says Marine. “When I am trying to speak of my paintings cordially, I feel shy. I am not a philosopher and I cannot explain the paintings and the life, I am just painting it. The one to chose and decide what my paintings show is people who see them,” says Marine.
Marine says that she likes the old archaic arts style. It seems that she is passing through the same way as the masters of the medium ages. “The esthetics that you like has to leave you anyway. I never bring the characters of the medium ages and make them live with our life. This is what my consciousness is telling me,” says Marine. Marine’s pictures are classified with their logics, freedoms and culture, which are classified like theatre staging, where there are small and big details, unique language, which connects the viewers with old myths and emotions. Such emotions don’t come partially; they are real and have a meaning.
“For me painting is a language. There are poets who write very beautiful poems, use beautiful words, and there are poets who are trying to invent new words. The same thing is done in painting too. There are very good painters who are creating new languages, and this language is very close to archaism. Painter is a person who doesn’t speak, and the only way to communicate is painting, showing the ideas and feelings with colors and lines. The mind is very flexible and needs different words,” says Marine. Being an introvert painter marine openly refuses the modern styles and the modern style she creates is more tiny and natural. “A lot of ideas may come to my head but I don’t use daily routine ideas. I am interested in the human being and anything connected to them,” she says. It seems that she is concentrating on the eternal. In her painting entitled The Habitants a group of people and mystic figures are going forward being surrounded by birds. The land has gone away from under their legs and they have decided to pass their way by a mystic transport. May be it is escape or improvement. It seems that the real picture of our days is such alternative, even if the author of the painting does not think so. Because any piece of art has its own way.
For Marine Dilanyan the national belongings are not the national dresses or carpets. “The real national belonging is the temperament, geography, blood and genetics. For example in Russian icons the national belonging is the deep religious meaning given with minimalist expressions. In our miniatures there is deep dramatics, and any details in them are national for me,” she says.
Marine Dilanyan is a harmonic person, and even though there may be storms in her soul, she has a way to help her inner world come to a balance and talk to people with the language of arts. “There are many good things in our life. We have many meetings and conversations, after which some parts of dialogues, faces of people and happy or sad memories stay with us. Our character is formed of the mentioned things happening in the life and characters, education and experience. This is how people are brought up and they dive in noise and become a part of that noise. However, when the man stops the noise and keeps silence, he/she shows the real soul. The real soul is deeper and divine. There are moments when we feel that our skin does not exist any more and we see the nerves under the skin, and that is why we become so sensitive. These are the moments when the real faces of people are shown. As for the skin, it protects us, and when it becomes transparent it opens our real faces and we are ready to do things that we cannot afford usually. We are becoming ready to see things which we have been ignoring before. For example, we can look at a fork for many times but not see it. But one day you look at the fork and see that it is a beautiful thing and you are thinking of the people who have taken it in their hands before you. In other words, unexpectedly everything becomes important to you. Such things don’t happen often because we have a shell and hide in that shell like turtles in order not to break out and go mad,” says Marine.
When the painting finds its viewer, when the issue of self-determination and self-recognition arises, it always looks like a miracle. It is a magnetic miracle, which you cannot explain. Marine Dilanyan’s paintings have their dense and magnetic miracle, which cannot be explained. The painter exhibits her pictures in Europe often and her paintings are included in many museum exhibitions and private collections.
Often it is very difficult for a painter to make his/her name recognizable and make it a visit card. There are modern Armenian painters who are very competent with their art but are not famous in the world. Marine believes appreciating the art is as much important as the art itself. “It is up to the supporters of the painter, the collector or state to make a painter famous. The collectors of all times have collected paintings which were not famous but they appreciated them much. And now rich people are not interested in arts,” says Marine.
There are few artists in Armenia who are not in delusion. As a rule they don’t try to advertise their arts and escape from contacts with state officials and become a hierarchic component. They inspire hope in themselves that everything is not lost yet and due to their efforts art exists in our country. “There are deep, sensitive people with high quality, but they are not the decision makers, there are few people like them,” says Marine Dilanyan. She has noticed that lists of artists and most expensive paintings are being made. In other words, artists are classified. “Sometimes I think that it is very good that I am not included in such lists, which means that I am marginal,” says Marine smiling. It is marginal to be fair and professional in our days, and it means that arts have an extreme role.