Sonia Balassanian, a contemporary painter, was born in Arak. Her interest in art and literature began in her childhood. Later, at the beginning of her youth, she engaged in sporadic activities in theater acting and poetry writing, and by becoming a member of the "Noor Edge" association, she published her first poems in this group's magazine. Her desire for various experiences led her to try mediums such as layout, video art, and the experiences of different forms in the painting.
She studied art at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts and received her B.A. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute in New York. And he also studied freely at the Museum of Fine Arts in New York. During this period, she won several awards in American art events; In 1970, She won the European award of J. Henry Scheidt from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1971 she won the Academy's Drak Press Award. Balassanian exhibited her works for the first time in 1975 at Zarvan Gallery in Tehran. In 1976, she participated in Basel International Art Fair. Her first solo exhibition in New York (1980), titled "Hostages: A Diary," was held at Eli Meyer Gallery. Her second solo exhibition in this city, 9 years later, was at Exit Art Gallery, titled "Thinking." In 1995 and 1997, Balassanian represented Armenia at the Venice Biennale. Along with her second appearance at the Venice Biennale, her works also participated in the Bochum Art Biennale. In 2021, this artist's works also participated in Art Fair Asia Today (Paris) through Ab Anbar Gallery.
We said earlier that Balassanian has tried different styles and mediums. However, the most famous works of this artist are her abstract paintings. At the beginning of her professional career, she used lyrical abstracts with a repeating rhythm to create white, gray, and black lines. These paintings of her are variations of a single idea. In most of these works, the lines are like notes in horizontal rows below each other. In some periods, these horizontal lines approach the alphabet's shape turning the whole panel into an illegible list. In some other paintings of Balassanian, these rhythms take a rotating form, and these rhythmic lines rotate around a center. For example, we can refer to her "Areas of Peace" painting created in 2014. The mentioned paintings remind the famous abstract works of Y. Z. Kami. Balassanian later switched to other media such as collage, installation, performance, and video. In her works, she tries to define her individuality as a female artist concerning the cultural and social issues of the contemporary world. In collages made of her own scattered face, letters, and old official seals, she refers the audience to tragedies that may happen today or tomorrow, although they belong to the past.