Last month, Lilit Sarkisian opened Concept Privé’s L’Amusette—a salon-style showcase of independent high jewelry and contemporary art—at Naples Sailing & Yacht Club with a live painting. The piece, Tamar, completed over 90 minutes in front of guests, became a tribute to her grandmother. Earlier that day, Lilit learned that the woman who had encouraged her since she was a young girl in Armenia had passed away. Finishing the piece that night, she felt she had become what her grandmother Tamar had always seen in her. The canvas opened into an oversized peony, its petals unfolding in layered pinks and corals around a dense center—a reflection of Tamar’s love of the flower, the women’s relationship and Lilit’s insistence on focusing on what endures.
Behind each of Lilit’s luminous blooms is a life shaped by the loss and displacement brought on by war. Now based in Lisbon, the artist has had to flee two homelands: her native Armenia at age 3 and Ukraine four years ago, when she left with her husband and two children, after Russia invaded the country. “At one point, I lost faith in what I was doing. I thought, ‘Who needs art in this situation?’” Lilit recalls. “But then I realized that in moments of tragedy, fragility and vulnerability, people need hope. Art became hope for me.”
Her paintings don’t dwell in tragedy. She captures the plants at full bloom, when they are at their most visible and least protected. “Vulnerability, and the ability to open yourself to the world and show your real soul, is very precious to me,” she adds.
Metamorphosis, the new series she presented during L’Amusette, widens the lens. Where her earlier work captured fully formed subjects, her current work tracks the full arc of becoming—from the diffuse, still-forming states before the bloom to the gradual release that follows. In these paintings, figures emerge, hold and dissolve within a single composition. Blurred fields of green, gray and deep burgundy move in and out of focus, while gestures suggest stems and petals; edges soften and collapse back into abstraction; and paint drips as if pulled down by gravity. “I don’t paint flowers as objects; I paint feminine souls,” she says.
We were struck by Lilit’s work during her first visit to Naples in early 2025 for another Concept Privé event. Founded by Sona Chakarian, the Naples-based cultural event platform draws from the Parisian salon tradition to connect collectors with global artists and designers through private gatherings. Lilit is becoming a fixture for the series. Blossom, the piece she painted during the event at Gulfshore Playhouse in front of 120 guests, sold before she left the stage. Her work resonates with a place attuned to beauty that’s cultivated and grounded in depth. “I love this city; it inspires me to create,” Lilit adds. “If Naples were a flower, maybe it would be a bird of paradise—bright and alive.”
During her recent visit, we caught up with the artist to talk about art in times of instability, openness in a disconnected world and how flowers reflect the interior state of a woman’s soul. Watch the full interview above.
Videography by Pechorina Films