Armenian Poppies

A few years ago, I went to Armenia. Our group comprised three families: five Sarkissians, four Boghossians, and one Manoogian. A dynamic, lumbering crowd full of life, noise, laughter, shouting, emotions, and many personalities. Our days mostly involved traveling, looking, eating, and talking. Every day, we saw something new, and tried to soak in every bit of the land we were removed from. Now, most of the sights have blurred together in my memory, though some are clear.

One memory vividly stands out. Driving to the lake through fields of uniform grass. The monotony and heat oppressive. Cigarette scent lingering. A loud clamor of conversations competing with each other and the roar of the engine.

All at once, the fields were full of red poppies, glowing in my green-adjusted vision. Large papery petals surrounding black centers. For a few moments, all conversation and attention was directed at the flowers.

This work is inspired by those few moments.

Nat Sarkissian

Technical details: Produced from an algorithm I wrote in Javascript and GLSL.

The rendering is accomplished by drawing the outline of a shape (thin black lines), and filling it with hashes (thicker green, white, red lines).

Two shaders are used to simulate something like pen, oil pastels, and markers on textured paper, though the visual qualities of the final output are uniquely computerized.