Shahen ZEE

 ARTIST AND DESIGNER

Acclaimed American Armenian artist and designer Shaheen Zarookian ties together the styles of modernist Europe with abstract expressionism.

Much like the sound of the Beatles that shaped his youth, Shaheen takes a Euro-centric approach to styles largely rooted in the American experience. His painted works “Abstract Expressionism” as he calls them—are born of this intercontinental sensibility, and reflective of his traveling and life experiences.

After studying fine arts in the early 1970’s, Shaheen worked as a young designer for various design companies including designing graphics for the Seventh Asian Games 74’ while exhibiting his art throughout Europe. But in the early 1980’s he moved to America, falling in love with Boston and ultimately settling in nearby Belmont—a newfound home for him and his expanding family.

STYLE FROM THE MIDDLE TO END OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Working from his Belmont studio, Shaheen sharpened his signature style, assimilating his European background into the American idiom of the mid-to late-20th Century.

His unique visual expression has proved to be the key ingredient in a long and successful career in the worlds of graphic design, architectural graphics and fine art.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

While his creative directions for Bose products and other companies grace the shelves of shops around the globe, these days he largely focuses on his painting, bringing to it a sharp eye for color and composition honed over his years in design. Working with bright and dramatic palettes he infuses his work with a rhythmic arrangement of strong lines and lush textures, focusing on his vision of the human form, everyday life, and the natural world.

“The art that flows in my canvas is an expression of what is in my mind, my heart and my soul.”

In the end, Shaheen’s paintings are the culmination of the exterior world’s influence on his life, and his life’s influence on his interior world. As he says, “The art that flows in my canvas is an expression of what is in my mind, my heart and my soul.”