Michael Tsaturyan
Michael Tsaturyan is an artist and a multidisciplinary designer. Born in a small town in Southern Russia, he was bred in creative atmosphere since both his parents worked in fashion industry. No wonder that from an early age Michael got into drawing. Popular characters from movies, comic books and video games being his favorite subject. At that time in Russia comic books were pretty uncommon so he had no choice but to imagine his own alternative stories and draw comic books for himself and his friends. Upon graduating from high school Michael moved to Saint Petersburg, the art capital of Russia. It was the time when his art broke out from sketchbooks to occupy city walls and human bodies. Making tattoos and hand-painted t-shirts helped Michael earn some initial capital and take classes in industrial design at a private art school.
Fresh out of the art school, Michael moved to Southern China where he started his career as an industrial designer. During his life in China Michael walked a long path from a regular designer in local companies developing toys for kids to a creative director at an international brand producing sport accessories and wearable gadgets. Michael has several patents pending for his inventions in product design. He has also produced his own collection of streetwear clothing and created a line of official licensed products for 2014 Winter Olympics.
China also became a place where Michael truly ventured into the art world. His works took part in the exhibitions and festivals in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Most of his works are executed in mashup technique mixing objects and characters in a witty and ironic way. In Michael’s works Renaissance classics easily meet modern pop culture, religion meets technology and poetry meets porn. Often those combinations can be totally different and unexpected, e.g. Ninja Turtles turning up amid frescoes of Sistine Chapel, or Osama Bin Laden taking a selfie for his Instagram. Individual style and quirky sense of humor make his works go viral on internet and soak to offline.
Recently Michael moved back to Moscow where he is preparing to go West. Combining experience gained in industrial design and his passion for art, Michael turned to sculpture, and developed a number of cutting edge works. The very first of those, “D-1000” featuring Michelangelo’s David merging into liquid metal Terminator, will be placed in LA Collection’air sculpture park in Lucerne, Switzerland.
