Marie Khediguian

Marie Khediguian is a Canadian-Armenian artist. The daughter of immigrants and granddaughter of four survivors of the Armenian Genocide, her work is rooted in this family memory and in the tension between the tangible culture of Canada and the more fragile, intangible diasporic heritage.

Her Art

Marie Khediguian defines herself as an emerging artist. She primarily works with oil painting and drawing, while also incorporating an archival dimension into her artistic approach. Although she has been painting and drawing since childhood, she has fully dedicated herself to her practice in recent years, especially since choosing to shift her career toward visual arts.

Her style is expressive and deeply connected to memory. She explores sensitive atmospheres imbued with softness, nostalgia, and emotional depth. Her main subject is familial and collective memory, particularly stories related to the Armenian diaspora, inherited trauma, and the emotional bonds that endure despite time and exile. She also seeks to evoke universal feelings—love, grief, and nostalgia—in order to build a bridge between the immigrant experience and emotions that everyone can recognize.

The artist’s work revolves around themes of loss, exile, transmission, mourning, nostalgia, and deep love that transcends generations. She draws inspiration from her family’s stories, Armenian history, her children, and the dialogue between the fragility of memory and the permanence of painting.

Marie also wishes to remind us that memory, even painful, can give rise to beauty and solidarity. What she values most is the ability to transform fragments of memory and deep emotions into lasting images—images that can touch others and create bridges between different stories and cultures.

About

Her journey began in architecture, a discipline in which she earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from McGill University. After working in architectural firms and teaching architectural technology, she returned to her true calling: visual art. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a specialization in painting and drawing at Concordia University. Motherhood has also strengthened her desire to pass on and anchor her family’s memory through painting.

Her work is available for purchase through galleries, home décor boutiques, and her website. She also creates custom commissions, collaborating with clients to bring their ideas to life. She offers personalized portraits in watercolor and oil, and facilitates workshops and presentations—particularly in schools—to raise awareness about genocide histories and intergenerational transmission.

Marie Khediguian has participated in over a dozen curated and juried group exhibitions in downtown Montreal galleries. Her work has also been featured in a symposium on nostalgia and broadcast on CBC News.