Kavenchy Art Gallery

Kavenchy’s recent Exhibitions include

2012: Group Exhibition at SBC Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2011: Solo Exhibition Benefiting Refugees International at L2 Lounge Washington, DC

2011: Kavenchy Solo Art Show, Washington, DC

2010: Creative Coalition's Salute to Arts & Entertainment Event, Washington, DC



Sam Kavenchy, Artist

An artist by any other name is a master of the visual, a conjurer of images that resonate with an intangible element derived from a highly personal place. For Sam Kavenchy, that means surfacing a past that is hard for most to even imagine.

As Kavenchy readily acknowledges, he is, for the first time in his career, painting for himself rather than the invisible, judgmental viewer. Thus, he speaks of his work now as “the beauty of truth.” Stylistically, Kavenchy’s works approach contemporary figurative abstraction.

While traditional artist bios present the standard credentials – academia, exhibitions, and the like– Kavenchy’s is unusual. Though trained at Corcoran College of Art and Design, he prefers to speak of his artistic education in terms of his unusually eventful life.

Born in Basra, Iraq, he was the middle child in a family of fifteen and, as such, had a difficult time defining his individuality. Rather than evolving his childhood voice in the normal way, he traced onto tissue paper the art works of his brothers. Successfully passing one off as his own at school, he felt, ever so briefly, as though he had become an artist. When the teacher commended the work and asked him to show the class how he accomplished the task, Kavenchy froze. The teacher slapped him. Kavenchy believes his career began at that moment, tangled in resolve to prove his talent to the abuser.

Had that been all, it would have been enough. An even more brutal experience ensued. In his mid teens, having escaped an oppressive Middle East regime, he found himself in a forgotten desert refuge camp. For the next seven years Kavenchy thought of little else than how to be found and how to create a life after the camp.

Far from the desert, Sam experienced a series of unstable relocations, in France, Italy and Montreal. Eventually, he made his way to Washington, DC and traded his desire to create pure art for a career in fashion.

At this time of his life, Sam Kavenchy feels his greatest artistic accomplishment is that he is finally pushing through the barriers of restraint to present the person he is. This come through in his canvases, where the darkness gives way to light, to hope.

Sam Kavenchy and his wife are American citizens and make their home in California. They have a six-year-old son. Often, the family goes into studio together to make art.

His paintings are held in the collections of celebrities and socialites. To own a work by Sam Kavenchy is to understand that only beauty born of truth is valid.