Raffi Tokatlian

Academic studies between Beirut, Paris, various workshops and stays abroad, many steps refine the art techniques and feed the inspiration of Raffi Tokatlian.

Raffi Tokatlian, who was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1957, was raised in a family of artists.
His grandfather, the only member of his Armenian family to survive the Armenian genocide of 1915, had emigrated to Lebanon.

Tokatlian grew up with his grandfather’s stories of the genocide and his escape from Armenia, and they formed the emotional core of his sculptural work.
His grandfather was an artist, as was his father, and he recalls,

“Everyday the three of us were painting or drawing, side by side.”