WESTWOOD, N.J. — A new two-person exhibition at Sfumato Gallery brings those opposing qualities together through the work of painter Mher Khachatryan, known as The Smoke Artist, and sculptor Karen Akhikyan.
“Smoke and Steel,” now on view at the gallery at 24 Booker St., pairs Khachatryan’s atmospheric, monochromatic paintings with Akhikyan’s welded-metal figures. The exhibition explores movement, transformation and the tension between permanence and impermanence.
Khachatryan works with smoke as both subject and medium, capturing forms that would ordinarily vanish almost as soon as they appear. His paintings preserve fleeting moments of light and motion, turning the intangible into something viewers can pause over.
Akhikyan’s steel sculptures bring a different physical presence to the gallery. Forged and welded into expressive figures, the works explore resilience, vulnerability and human emotion through gesture and form.
Presented together, the artists’ work creates a visual conversation between fragility and strength, absence and presence. Smoke dissolves into air; steel is bent into lasting form. Both, however, are transformed by the artist’s hand.
Sfumato Gallery describes itself as a contemporary art space dedicated to presenting emerging and established artists and encouraging engagement with the community.
Admission is free, and the works are available for purchase. The gallery is open Fridays from 2 to 7 p.m. and Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m., or by appointment.
