by Barbara Mellin

The Middlesex Beat - August 2003

Sensual and sacred - colorful and monochromatic - traditional and original - the artwork of Daniel Varoujan Hejinian is all of the above.

"Everyone should have art in their lives," says the Chelmsford based artist. ‘Without art, we live in our own shells." Varoujan, as he signs his artwork, certainly practices what he preaches.

In 1979, he left Soviet-dominated Armenia, where he had been working on his Ph.D. in art at the Institute of fine Art in the capital city of Yerevan. Feeling stifled by the restrictions of the government-run art projects, he sought a life with more artistic freedom. Leaving behind all his paintings, which under soviet rules belonged to the state, he came to America with his wife and young daughter to fulfill his need for unrestrained creative expression.

That artistic expression has taken many forms. On arriving in America, to support his family, which soon included a son, Varoujan took a job as a billboard painter with Akerly Media. In those days, before computer printouts, the giant 14 foot high billboards were painted by hand. His work for Akerly was incredibly realistic, everything from pizza to portraits of athletes. For an Italian restaurant ad, he recreated Michelangelo's Creation of Adam from Sistine Chapel. In addition, he painted the four-story-high murals of the landmarks of Venice and the contributions of Italy that continue to decorate the Ristorante Philippo on Causeway Street, known as the gateway to Boston's North End.

Over the years, he has also decorated Armenian churches around the country. St. Vartanantz Church on Westford Road in Chelmsford was his first commission of this sort. Here he created 45 murals within a three-year period, all the while working a full-time job. "Time is elastic," says Varoujan, "It stretches to allow us to fit everything in. We have the energy within ourselves to do the big stuff."