Valentin Melik-Agamirian was born on a sunny afternoon on the nineteenth day of May in 1984.  Like his many peers, Valentin learned to crawl, walk and talk before he was two.  What set him apart from other kids was his innate gift of drawing the world around him.  On cold and snowy days he would run and play outside under his mother’s watchful eye.  When he would see a bread truck pass by the playground, he would pick up a twig, plop on the snow and draw the bread truck.  Nothing intricate or fancy, of course, just circles and squares he shaped to look like a truck.

"What are you drawing?"  Asked other parents.

"Tukk."  Two-year-old Val would answer, while amazed crowds of people gather to watch him draw other objects he saw.

In 1994, Valentin moved to America, settled down with his family and went to school to learn English.  Val was an ordinary kid in an ordinary school, only he knew another language and he drew the best comic book characters the kids ever saw, next to the comic books.  Valentin's parents noticed his interest in art and encouraged him to receive formal education, but they could not find a place that would accommodate his needs. 

In the spring of 1998, Val's father was invited to work in Ukraine.  Valentin celebrated his last birthday in Idaho, placed his baggage on the x-ray machine, and took off for a destination halfway around the world, but Ukraine was only his first stop.  After many searches, Valentin enrolled in the St. Petersburg Academic Art Lyceum belonging to the prestigious Russian Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, which ranks among the most prominent European schools teaching classical art. 

In the summer of 2002, at eighteen, Valentin mounted his first professional solo exhibition at the Arts Council in Buffalo and Erie County, New York.

Valentin graduated the Academic Art Lyceum in 2003, passed the torturous month-long entrance exams to the Russian Academy of Arts.  Valentin entered the Academy second in his class.  He quickly became the most promising student, when his still-lifes were selected for an exhibit along side upper classmen.

In his second year at the Academy, Valentin earned a Certificate of Outstanding Academic Achievement in the Arts.  He was invited to work on a mosaics project for a new subway station in St. Petersburg.  And for the first time in the Academy’s 200-year history, the Archives of the Academic Museum took not only his finished works, but also every sketch, drawing, plan and outline he made in preparation for his works, so future students could reference his creative process.

In eleven years of professional study, Valentin has won several art competitions, and created more than 600 pieces.  His art has graced the walls of galleries and private collectors in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Moscow and St. Petersburg, a subway station and the Archives of the Russian Academy of Arts, alongside great Russian painters from the time of Catherine the Great to the present.

© 2011 valentin melik