11-Year-Old’s Artsakh Painting Sells for $1,800 After School Removed It as ‘Anti-State’ 

An 11-year-old girl’s painting of Artsakh’s best-known monument has sold at auction for $1,800 after it was removed from a Yerevan school exhibition and allegedly described by an administrator as an “anti-state” work.

Gayane Aghabekyan, an Artsakh native living in Moscow, bought Eva Danielyan’s painting when the auction closed at 10 p.m. Wednesday, organizer Vardan Hakobyan told Aravot.am.

The sale follows public outrage over the treatment of Eva’s artwork at the Anushavan Ter-Ghevondyan Music School in Yerevan. The painting depicts “We Are Our Mountains,” the monument in Stepanakert widely known as “Grandma and Grandpa.”

According to the Artsakh Cultural Preservation Center, the school’s acting principal ordered the painting removed from an annual exhibition and called its display an “anti-state act.”

“I never imagined that a painting about Artsakh would be removed from an exhibition wall,” Eva previously told ABC Media.

Eva painted the monument several days before the exhibition, using bright colors she said reflected how she pictured it.

“I chose these colors because this is how I imagined it,” she said. “I really love these colors.”

Her art teacher, Sona Jarahyan, placed the painting in the exhibition area the evening before the event. It was gone the next morning after being removed on the administration’s orders. Jarahyan later returned it to the display, while Eva learned about the dispute only afterward.

Jarahyan met with the school’s administration after the exhibition, submitted her resignation and left the school. She declined to discuss the circumstances in detail but has since found another job.

Eva said she cried when she learned her teacher was leaving.

“I love her very much,” she said.

Eva also plans to leave the art program at the school and follow Jarahyan to her new workplace.

“Wherever my art teacher starts working, I will go there, too,” she said.

The Artsakh Cultural Preservation Center said it learned about the incident about a month ago and requested explanations from Armenia’s Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports and the Yerevan Municipality.

The ministry denied issuing any written or verbal order restricting Artsakh-related symbols in educational or cultural institutions, according to the NGO. The municipality provided the organization with an explanation from the school’s acting principal.

Apres Margaryan, the organization’s president, said the administrator characterized the painting as “anti-state.” The school’s acting principal could not be reached for comment.

Margaryan said the case reflects a broader effort to remove Artsakh from Armenia’s cultural and public life. He argued that such actions contradict the Armenian government’s 2023 cultural heritage preservation policy, which includes provisions for protecting Artsakh’s Armenian heritage.

The NGO also said it has received reports from cultural groups that they were instructed to remove the word “Artsakh” from the names of performances or other works. The ministry has denied issuing such instructions.

The controversy has turned Eva’s painting from a student exhibition piece into a public symbol of resistance to the erasure of Artsakh’s identity.

Eva said the experience would not stop her from painting.

“I painted it, and I will keep painting.”

—

Support independent reporting from the region by subscribing to The Armenian Report. Our team is funded solely by readers like you.