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For Artsakh’s Sake: An Armenian Artist’s Plea for Peace by Will Landis-Croft When decades-long tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan escalated in July, Daniella Donatelle’s first instinct was to help by doing what she does best: draw. The illustrator, painter, and animator had only recently returned home to Yerevan, the Armenian capital, from New York City, her first year studying illustration at Parsons School for Design abruptly interrupted by the pandemic. In her work, Donatelle constructs a thoughtfully woven realm of playful characters and whimsical typography with serious, topical messages. A recent piece Donatelle posted features an illustration of the monument We Are Our Mountains, a sculpture outside Stepanakert, the capital of Artsakh. A massive, contemplative face rises to gaze upon the monument, with the words “Peace for Artsakh” inscribed below. Later, she used the piece to encourage donations for the Armenia Fund, an aid program helping Armenians affected by the attacks. With collaborators Mariam Tovmasian and Tasja Karapetian, Donatelle mailed stickers with the illustration to anyone who sent photo confirmations of their donations. The crisis in Artsakh strikes at anxieties which remain from the horrific legacy of the Armenian genocide. “This isn’t about territory, this is about human lives,” Donatelle says over video call from her bedroom in Yerevan. Through her artwork, she hopes to challenge patterns of misinformation, provide humanizing context for the crisis, and express solidarity with hurting Armenians. Donatelle’s influences range from filmmakers Stanley Kubrick and Yasujirō Ozu to the Muppets creator Jim Henson, the surreal paintings of Amedeo Modigliani to the comic art of Julie Doucet. She began creating art at a young age, often collaborating with her highly creative family, a practice she continues in her animations with her younger sister and music videos for her brother’s band. As a teen, the Kochar Museum in Yerevan exposed her to the Armenian art community, most notably the museum’s namesake Yervand Kochar (1899-1979), the influential Armenian painter and sculptor who heralded the Painting in Space movement. In a recent illustration on Donatelle’s Instagram, anthropomorphized missiles and black smoke curve toward an anxious, bug-eyed dove. “The bird of peace may need a bit more than ‘strong words’ and encouragement to end a war” read the words swirling through the piece, referencing the international response to the crisis. Donatelle acknowledges that there are no clear solutions to the situation in Artsakh. She humanizes the crisis, saying, “it's hard to remember, a lot of times, that there are just regular people involved in this. And that most of the people caught up in the situation just want it to be over.” Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, is a region claimed by Azerbaijan but seeking recognition as an independent republic. The area’s complex history is punctuated by conflict between Armenia, which supports the majority Armenian population, and Azerbaijan, which seeks to gain control of the region. Beginning in July and escalating to complete military mobilization at the end of September, the war has claimed thousands of lives and displayed tens of thousands. In November, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a ceasefire agreement which surrendered much of Artsakh to Azerbaijan, sparking protest from Armenians who said the agreement betrayed ethnic Armenians fighting for their homeland in Artsakh. Thousands now live in fear of being driven from their homes by Azerbaijani and Turkish forces. Those fleeing the areas of Artsakh now controlled by Azerbaijan may never be allowed to return. For Armenians, the crisis in Artsakh echoes the 1915 genocide in Turkey, in which the Ottoman government systematically killed an estimated 800,000 to 1,500,000 Armenians. The atrocity remains unacknowledged by Turkey’s government, which backs Azerbaijan in the current conflict. In the wake of the ceasefire, Donatelle’s work appeared in Glimmers, an exhibition of Armenian artwork created during the war. Organized by Artsakh Art, the show also features a print sale to raise money for the Armenia Fund. Donatelle longs to see Artsakh recognized and the Armenian art community attain the resources for a long overdue renaissance. She also hopes that art can catalyze change around Armenian social issues like domestic violence and abortion rights, discussions which were put to the side during the war. Through the horror of the current crisis, Donatelle yearns for a brighter future for Armenians. But, she reminds me, “Internal peace can only be guaranteed by external peace,” a peace Artsakh and Armenia desperately deserve..

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