In the post-Covid era, many people’s habits, especially work routines, have transformed, with remote work becoming increasingly common. With the emergence of this trend, one of the most popular work destinations now is coffee shops, providing an ideal mix of comfort and productivity. This shift has led to a resurgence in the use of cafes as vibrant hubs for remote work, reminiscent of their historical role as spaces for intellectual and creative interaction.

Like many others who embraced remote work, Vitali Bogomazov, a graphic designer in the IT startup sector, found comfort in working from Yerevan’s various cafes. However, as creativity flows naturally within him, he soon found himself drawing inspiration in every corner of cafes and capturing it through sketches while working on his daily work tasks. 

Born and raised in Yerevan, Vitali immersed himself in the arts from a young age. “Starting with painting classes at Igityan Center in kindergarten, my mom and I would sketch together, often creating animals and fictional characters. As I grew older, I enrolled in concept art and animation classes at Tumo, where my love for drawing characters expanded, inspired by the animations I enjoyed watching as a child.”

The art school named after Hakob Kojoyan, where he decided to pursue his future career in design and arts, left a great imprint on his perspective.  He was then accepted at the Design and Applied Arts Department at the National Polytechnic University of Armenia. After graduation, Vitali was deployed for military service in 2019-2021, during which he continued to sketch during his rare free moments. “I still remember how I used to have a special notebook for those sketches. I used to create and draw fictional characters, sometimes I would sketch my friends from the army as I had lost the connection to the real world. I used to sketch to make time go faster, to escape the horrors and the war that was happening around us during those times,” says Vitali.

These ball-pen sketches were done in the camp (Papravand) where Vitali served before the war started. All those memories were kept on paper, but unfortunately, that same location is now a part of Azerbaijan.

After serving in the army, Vitalli came back to Yerevan and continued working at a tech company as a graphic designer. He continued drawing, but this time he started exploring digital art. “I liked digital art for a while, but I shortly lost interest. I believe art is such a thing that requires inspiration, and if that’s not there, it can easily vanish. In the past, I used to take breaks from drawing and sketching quite often, but then I understood that I needed to submerge myself in it, and make it a part of my daily life.”

While working as a freelance graphic designer, he realized that he wanted to do more creative work, and his job was not enough to fill that gap. That is when he started attending sketch clubs. “Those clubs were organized by Russian repatriate citizens who are now residing in Yerevan, and we used to draw live portraits of people and different nature mortes. Attending those clubs and becoming a part of the creative art community brought back my passion for visual arts.” Attending a few of these classes was enough to make Vitali see his skills and start drawing again.

Once he got back into drawing, Vitali found it hard to stop; whether he was working from home or local cafes, he couldn’t resist drawing the smallest of the details that were around him. “In these last 5-6 years, coffee culture became a thing in Yerevan, and with the emergence of working from home and freelancing, it became even more popular. Besides my full-time corporate job, I also do freelance sometimes, hence I was always pushing myself to leave the house and work from cafes and socialize. Also, it is important to highlight that coffee is my go-to drink and I’m always on the hunt for new cool specialized coffee spots. That’s basically how I got into working from cafes.”

During each visit, Vitali captured the small moments that unfolded in the coffee shops, finding joy in sketching in those cozy environments. “I started sketching the coffee shops and the people who were there. If you can capture that single moment, I believe you have it memorized forever.”

The message behind his artworks is to capture the slow, easy life of regular people. “If you stop and think, life is pretty complicated, we are constantly surrounded by negativity, noise, and overflow of information. If you can save and memorize a single moment, whether it’s people working, sipping on their favorite coffee, or simply hanging out with their friends at cafes, you might have yourself a pretty cool piece. I believe it all lies in simplicity. I like to show that easy, simple life.”

Vitali’s artworks consist of mixed techniques; he first draws by hand, then scans it or takes a picture, and later begins drawing and coloring it on his iPad. “I prefer drawing on my iPad because I get a more natural look of the colors and it is more realistic, whereas on paper it can seem more cartoonish.”

One of the reasons why his sketching style is photorealistic and mixed media is because back in high school, he practiced photorealism, and that’s how he got inspired. He was also highly influenced by different artists like Monet and Manet, Gauguin, Degas, Saryan, Ayvazovski, and Minas.

Through all his years of sketching, Vitali says that the most important lesson he has learned is to enjoy the process of making art, and not the end result. “There are times when the result is not the best, but I really enjoy the process of making the piece.” He loves the process so much that he feels compelled to approach the people he is sketching and show them his POV. “To me, that is the most rewarding thing. When other people appreciate your work and vision.”

Vitali believes that art makes people more humane. It plays with people’s emotions, shapes them, and helps them become more compassionate “Even during the most chaotic of times, art can shift things and make it simpler, and better,” believes Vitali.

For now, Vitali’s goal is to have his art as a side hobby, not as his main job. “I want to separate my art from the materialistic world. I want to have a normal job that supports me and have my art as my spiritual, safe space.” It’s already difficult to make a living out of art, but when he has art prints in the future, he plans on making them affordable so they can be more accessible to people. “That all goes back to how I view art. It is an emotion rather than a materialistic possession.”

Although Yerevan and local cafes are his main source of inspiration, Vitali travels a lot and plans to sketch more from different countries. He also has a passion for reading and writing.  “I love traveling, and I love to sketch during my travels. I like capturing those moments, the places, the different people. The goal is to travel and capture more of these moments and store it away for a long time.”

It doesn’t stop here. Vitali has ambitious plans for his future, including an exclusive preview of his upcoming solo exhibition which should be announced soon.