Aram Sid Voves was born in 1970 in Vienna into a family of performers
and visual artists. He spent school vacations in London at his aunt's
home, where musicians, actors, models and painters were daily visitors.
Here he took pictures with his pocket-camera to send home. A certain
influence of old masters can also be seen in Aram?s early photographs of
landscapes. The conservatism of these works must have had its influence
in art history - as a child, Aram used to stroll through the Museum of
Fine Art History, which was next to his family home in Vienna.
Later, he discovered Viennese Jewish history of the 19th and 20th
centuries. Vienna?s vanguard photographers of that time appeared to him
as shining examples of modern photography: Emil Mayer, Rudolf Kopitz,
Herbert Bayer, Raoul Hausmann, Trude Fleischmann, Laszlo Willinger,
Madame D?Ora, Edith Tudor Hart, just to name a few.
After spending a year in London, Aram finished high-school back in
Vienna. Although his father recognised the visual talents of the young
artist, he still checked with acquainted photographers. Among them,
painter and photographer Roland Pletersky ? himself famous for his works
in the New York Vogue. Pletersky showed Aram some of the tricks of the
trade, which have long since become technique, artistically and
business-wise. Aram?s father (like Roland Pletersky) never really
believed in art schools and the young man had to see how he could get
his art together on his own, and just by doing. During his teens he had
already read through the entire literature on photography. Up to this
day, Andreas Feininger?s book "The Complete Photographer? is Aram?s
bible of photojournalism and artistic photography. He also subscribed to
the highly regarded correspondence course of the New York Institute of
Photography and closed his studies with a print course at St. Martin?s
School of Art in London. Back in Vienna, his first assignment stretched
over the period of a whole year. It consisted of an extensive photo
documentation of the Vienna police department?s work with mentally
handicapped and physically disabled persons. Ever since he could hold a
camera, Aram was the designated photographer of his family?s business, a
theatrical and musical production company. Therefore his portfolio also
includes publicity-shots and concert reportages of some of the really
great musicians in the classics, avant garde, jazz, R&B and ethno. A
terrible sickness paralysed Aram for some time. This set him back
several years in his work. He will never forget the magic date of 11.11
.99 when he returned to work. Before his illness, Aram had also been
quite a good basketball player. So, during the Balkan war, when the
Yugoslav champion Red Star Beograd was forced to play its European-Cup
home games on neutral grounds (by order of the international basketball
federation,) and Red Star had chosen Vienna as the venue for the play-
offs, Aram worked as the team?s photographer, while Red Star took on the
likes of the champions of Russia, Italy, France, Greece and Spain. Now
Aram has recovered enough to even play a little basketball himself
again, and he is fully back on Vienna?s and London?s photo-scene.
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