Prize Winning Artist Lily Hambartsoumian (Spring 07)

by GK

She began by drawing on herself at the age of 3. With the encouragement of her parents, she moved onto painting her bedroom wall. In the fifth grade she entered art competitions in Armenia, ultimately going on to win prestigious awards for her paintings in the United States.

Lily Hambartsoumian: a fourth year Anthropology and Russian Literature Major at UCLA with a diploma from an Art Instruction School under her belt. You may find her directing, editing or even making films in the future- a goal of hers. More specifically, she would like to work for National Geographic shooting documentaries in South America and Africa.

For now, you can find Hambartsoumian editing student films at the Film Department at UCLA.
In her lifetime, she has earned 36 awards, six of which she came in first place.

One of these is a painting entitled “The Soldier,” which portrays soldiers’ return from war. Hambartsoumian explains that it shows the difficulty of soldiers trying to readapt to society after experiencing the horrors of war. Her first place achievement for this painting is especially notable as the Congressman Adam Schiff personally hands it over in the Congressional Art Competition for High School Students.

Other paintings include a depiction of a family in stone, awarded again in a Congressional Art Competition in Washington DC, where it remains to this day. A self-portrait can also be found among Hambartsoumian’s art: it features her resting her head on a violin. This one is “open to interpretation” she says and has been awarded in the National PTA Reflections Programs.

If the styles of Van Gogh and Edward Munck are mixed, the result is “Bondage” which received an award in the Scholastic Art Competition in 2003. Lily has also dabbled in shorts films, with an entry in the Echo Park Film Festival.

Lily is a prime example of what a bit of encouragement can do. Who knows, had her parents been angry with her for using her body as a canvas as a child, perhaps she would not be the accomplished artist she is today.