Mher Khachatryan shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Mher, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What are you most proud of building — that nobody sees?
I’m building myself, who I am and who I can become. It’s an internal foundation made of resilience, self-awareness, and purpose. No one sees it directly, but it shows up in every decision and every piece of work I put into the world.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am The Smoke Artist, an artist driven by the belief that we are all connected. My work, my teaching, and my life are rooted in self-discovery, reflection, and empathy. Through art, I explore the idea that I am in everything and everyone, and that everything and everyone exists within me.
I see art as a mirror, a way to connect people to themselves and to one another. Whether I’m creating, teaching, or building creative spaces, my goal is to help others pause, look inward, and recognize their own potential. I’m constantly learning about myself through this process, and that ongoing journey is what fuels everything I do.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I have always been me. The world gave me a name, but that name was never who I was. I am the one looking through my own eyes, observing, learning, and becoming aware of myself.
From an early age, I felt that identity wasn’t something to be assigned, but something to be discovered. As I grew, I began to understand myself not as something limited, but as something infinite. That awareness continues to shape how I live, create, and connect with the world.
If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
I would tell my younger self, “You can’t be more than you already are.” The idea that we need to become more is often an illusion. We don’t build ourselves, we discover ourselves.
I would remind myself to stay open, embrace possibility, and trust that life is always unfolding in my favor, even when it doesn’t look that way at the moment.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What do you believe is true but cannot prove?
We often believe that what is true is only what our senses can perceive. But truth isn’t limited to sight or sound. Reality is experienced differently by every being. There are things we cannot see, hear, or measure, yet they exist clearly for other species.
So can we truly prove whether something is real or not? The answer depends on who is experiencing it. Truth is not singular, it is personal, relative, and shaped by perception.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. When do you feel most at peace?
I feel most at peace when I’m alone in a quiet room, with classical music playing softly in the background. In that stillness, I let go of facts, expectations, and external noise, and enter the same space where my art begins.
It’s a meditative state, where thought slows, awareness expands, and creation feels less like effort and more like listening. That’s where my work comes from, and where I feel most connected to myself and to something greater than me.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thesmokeartist.com www.cre8sart.com
- Instagram: @the_smokeartist @cre8sart_school
Image Credits
Credits to Syuzanna Arutyunyan (founder of Sfumato Gallery)
