An in depth conversation with Lilith Manaryan…..

The coffee arrives before the conversation really begins. Lilit sits at a small table in the quiet morning of Yerevan, sunlight cutting across her face, and there’s something immediately striking about how she holds stillness , not the stillness of someone waiting, but of someone who’s comfortable in her own presence. She’s been drawing since before she could properly hold a pen, and it shows in the way she moves: deliberate, economical, sure.

“I grew up in a house where making things wasn’t a choice,” she says, wrapping her hands around the cup. “My father, my mother, my grandparents, they were all artists, musicians, creators. So I never had to decide whether this was for me. It was just… the air I breathed.”

That sounds romantic, maybe even easier than it probably was. But Lilit doesn’t trade in romance. When she talks about her 22 years of work beginning as a child on her father Krist Manaryan’s projects, moving through formal comic training in Yerevan and Angoulême, winning first prize at the Yerevan International Comics Festival in 2011 there’s no nostalgia softening the edges. These are facts. These are miles traveled.

“The hardest part wasn’t learning to draw,” she says. “It was the two years when I couldn’t. When other obligations took over and I had almost no time at the drawing table. That was actually difficult, not because I missed it in some sentimental way, but because I couldn’t do the one thing I’ve always known how to do.”

She looks out toward the street for a moment, and you can see her thinking about those years, not with regret, exactly, but with the clarity of someone who’s learned something essential about themselves through deprivation.

It’s easy to underestimate the scope of Lilit’s work if you’re only glancing at the resume. Yes, she’s illustrated more than 90 author and classical fairy tales and poems for children. She is also  the concept artist and illustrator of more than 50 musical animation films (“Multi-pulti aybuben” (2014), “What I shall become” (2015).

In 2013  she finished her  first short movie called “Solo”, in which  she  played, and which  she was the scriptwriter and the director of. The film won the 1st Prize at Nofi International Film Festival as The Best Short Film.

In 2015 I held 3 personal exhibitions under the same title “Lilit And The Dreams”. 

She combines different techniques like watercolor and ink pen, pencil and graphic effects, focused on mostly expressive colors. 

Yes, she’s done all of this while also working as a musician and film director.

But numbers flatten the reality of what she actually does day to day: she tells stories in images, and she does it with the discipline of someone trained in the rigorous demands of both visual art and music.

“I illustrate broadly,” she explains. “Children’s books, adult literature, contemporary work, classics. Comics, animation, concept art. The specifics change, but the core work is the same, I’m trying to make something visible that someone else imagined, or that I imagined. I’m trying to make it speak.”

She illustrates ArdiBook, the first Armenian encyclopedia, a project that required not just artistic vision but a kind of pedagogical imagination, the ability to make knowledge visually accessible to children. She created the visual world for The Arctic Muffin, a fairy tale by Mark Kowalsky. She worked on her father’s Felo and The Crazy Train, a book for teenagers published in 2020, and on Mokh, Dmbldokh and Uncle Krist’s Fairy Tales*, another collaboration that came out in 2022.

The collaboration with her father runs deep, it’s not just professional, it’s a continuation of something that started in her childhood, when she was already working on his projects.

“Working with him is natural,” she says. “We speak the same visual language. But also, I understand what he’s trying to say because I’ve been around it my whole life. There’s no translation needed. The visual language was something I inherited, in a way.”

She takes a sip , and there’s something almost meditative about the gesture. She’s comfortable with silence, with thinking through what she wants to say next.

“The thing about illustrating broadly is that it keeps you sharp,” she continues. “You can’t fall into a formula. You can’t coast on one successful style. Every project demands something different, and that demand is what keeps the work alive. I’ve done children’s books that required soft, approachable illustration, and I’ve done comics that needed sharp, graphic intensity, and I’ve done concept art for animation that was somewhere in between. Each one teaches you something.”

What’s less visible in the portfolio of illustration and animation is the parallel professional life Lilit has built as a musician. From 2009 to 2015, she studied at the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory, earning her Master of Arts degree in a rigorous six-year program at one of Armenia’s most prestigious music institutions. That training didn’t remain theoretical. She worked from 2015-2018  as a Senior Flutist in the General Office Military Orchestra of the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Armenia, a position that demanded technical excellence, discipline, and the ability to perform under pressure at the highest level.

The flute is not an incidental detail in her artistic biography. When she describes her work, the influence of musical training becomes apparent where all feelings and thoughts of imagination come from. These aren’t just metaphors for her visual art. They’re direct applications of skills learned through years of instrumental practice.

“Music taught me things that illustration alone never could have,” she explains. “When you play an instrument, especially at a conservatory level, you learn discipline in a different way than visual art requires. You learn about precision and timing. You learn how to serve a score, how to listen to other musicians, how to place your contribution within a larger structure.”

She pauses, considering how to articulate the connection.

When  she is working on animation,  it’s apparent she is constantly thinking about pacing and rhythm and how the visual information unfolds over time, how each frame relates  one to another.That’s musical thinking. When I’m composing a panel in a comic, I’m thinking about the beat of it, the visual rhythm. That comes directly from my training as a musician.”

The work at the Ministry of Defence Orchestra was not what most people would expect to hear about from a contemporary artist and illustrator. But Lilith doesn’t apologize for it or compartmentalize it. It’s part of her life, part of her professional identity.

“It was steady work,” she says straightforwardly. “It’s demanded in specific ways. And it kept me connected to something larger than my own creative project, you’re part of an ensemble, you’re serving a tradition, you’re part of something institutional and historical. That matters. That grounds you.”

The position also carried a particular significance in Armenia , the military orchestra is a respected institution, and the work required both musical mastery and a certain kind of professional commitment. For someone trained at the Komitas Conservatory, playing at this level is recognition of serious technical ability.

“The flute demands a particular kind of precision,” she notes. “Intonation, breath control, the ability to produce a pure, clear sound. It’s different from drawing, where you can have happy accidents and improvisation. With the flute, the note is either in tune or it isn’t. You learn to trust your training, to not second-guess yourself in the moment. That confidence translates to other work.”

She mentions that some of her colleagues in the orchestra didn’t know about her work as an illustrator and artist. The two worlds didn’t  naturally intersect. But for Lilit , they were  clearly integrated different expressions of the same commitment to craft, to precision, to service to something larger than immediate self-expression.

Lilit  mentions her formal training in multiple disciplines with the same matter-of-fact clarity. The comic art courses she completed at APBDA in Yerevan and Angouleme, France, from 2011 to 2013 happened at the same time she was completing her Master of Arts degree at the Komitas Conservatory. The timing alone suggests a kind of relentless focus, finishing a master’s degree in music while also pursuing serious training in comic art, working on her father’s projects, and still managing to win first prize at the Yerevan International Comics Festival in 2011.

“France was important,” she says of the Angouleme training. “Not because Yerevan wasn’t rigorous , but because it was different. It was a different world of comics, a different sensibility. And the conservatory training was happening in parallel, which meant I was constantly thinking about visual storytelling while also deeply engaged in the discipline of music. They fed each other.”

The Komitas Conservatory is not an incidental detail in Armenian cultural life. Named after the legendary composer Komitas, who is considered the father of Armenian classical music, the conservatory is where serious musicians are trained. Completing a Master of Arts degree there represents a significant commitment and a level of musical achievement that opens doors in Armenia’s classical music world.

“The conservatory is very traditional,” Lilit explains. “Very focused on technique, on the classical tradition, on precision. That rigor shaped how I approach all my work. There’s no room for sloppiness, no room for pretending. Either you can do it or you can’t.”

But she’s careful not to overstate the importance of formal training in either discipline. “I was already drawing my whole life before I went to school, and I was already playing music as a child,” she points out. “The training gave me technique, gave me context, gave me a community. But the foundation was already there. Some people need more structure, more guidance. For me, it was more about refining what I was already doing.”

This attitude, pragmatic, unsentimental, focused on the work rather than the narrative around the work, seems to be her default mode. She doesn’t need the story to be better than the reality; the reality is interesting enough.

When Lilit talks about her process, there’s no anxiety in it. She describes a moment that many artists know well, when a line goes somewhere unexpected, when the form develops “wrong”, but her response is unusual. She doesn’t panic. She doesn’t try to salvage something she thinks should be there. She observes.

“I pause,” she says. “I look at what happened. Sometimes that accident gives the drawing something better than what I planned. Sometimes I correct it. But the important thing is that it *feels* right. The vibe has to feel pleasant.”

She uses that word deliberately: “pleasant”. Not correct, not technically accurate, not clever. Not even successful in some grand artistic sense. Pleasant. It suggests something learned over decades, a trust in instinct that only comes from making thousands of decisions, from knowing what your hand wants to do before you tell it.

This approach comes from both disciplines, the visual artist’s openness to accident and happy mistake, combined with the musician’s understanding that perfect technical execution is a foundation, not a limitation. A note can be technically perfect but emotionally wrong. A line can be precisely drawn but feel lifeless. The real work is in the integration.

“I always know what I’m drawing,” she adds. “Even when it changes direction. Even when something unexpected happens. There’s a coherence to it. You feel it or you don’t. And if you don’t feel it, then it’s not working yet, no matter how technically perfect it is.”

She describes this process in a way that makes it sound almost meditative like the drawing knows where it needs to go, and her job is to stay awake and responsive to that knowledge.

“When I was younger, I used to try to fight it,” she admits. “I’d have a plan, and if the drawing went somewhere else, I’d see it as a failure. But over time, I learned that the unplanned direction is often where the real energy is. The thing that makes it alive. So now I trust that more. I let it happen.”

Lilit is skeptical of certain kinds of self-examination. When asked what she values in her own work, she pushes back slightly “I’d probably repeat myself” but then she does it anyway, because it matters to her, even if she pretends it doesn’t.

“Composition,” she begins. “That’s fundamental. The way elements sit in relation to each other. Color sensitivity, I’ve always been aware of color in a way that some people aren’t. My ability to create portraits of people that actually have life in them, that look like something real even if they’re stylized. And speed, the speed of my decision-making. I’ve tried to keep what pleased my eye as a child, and I think that’s still there.”

She mentions that some people called her a “master of line” when she was young. The phrase hangs in the air between us, it’s not something she says with pride, exactly, but with recognition. A fact about herself.

“Graphic drawing is what I’m strong at,” she continues. “Ink, pencil, that kind of precision work. Oil pastels, watercolor, I love those for their expressiveness and flexibility. But the line work is where I’m most confident. That’s where the decisions happen most clearly.”

She’s thoughtful about materials, but in a way that prioritizes the idea over the tool. “I deeply love oil pastels for their flexibility and coverage,” she says, “but materials are secondary to what you’re actually trying to say. Some of my best work has been done with the most basic tools because the idea was clear. The image was already formed before I ever picked up the pen.”

She pauses, then adds something that feels like a quiet truth: “I always know what I’m drawing. Even before I start. That’s probably the thing I’m most proud of, that clarity of vision. It doesn’t matter if it changes once I’m working. The direction is there from the beginning. It’s the same with music. You know the note before you play it. That preparation, that clarity, is everything.”

There’s a moment in our conversation where I ask her what advice she’d give to young artists starting out. She actually laughs, not unkindly, but with genuine amusement at the question itself.

“I don’t think young artists need my advice about creative work,” she says flatly. “That’s not my role. I’m not a teacher, and I don’t think creativity can be taught in that way. What you can teach is craft, technique, and mechanics. But the actual creative impulse? That has to come from somewhere inside. I can’t give you that.”

But then she leans forward, and you can see that there  is something she wants to say.

“If someone asks me about introducing their work to the world? That I have thoughts about,” she continues. “Don’t be afraid to invest every type of resource into getting your talent in front of people as soon as possible. Don’t wait. Don’t assume you need permission or another five years of practice or the perfect portfolio. Put it out there. Let people see it. That’s how you actually grow. That’s how you find your audience and your collaborators and the next opportunity.”

It’s practical advice, almost ruthlessly so. There’s no coddling in it, no false encouragement. Just: do the work, show the work, iterate based on what you learn. Repeat. It’s the advice of someone who won a major festival award while still in school, who has been working continuously for 22 years, who doesn’t believe in waiting for perfect conditions.

 She mentions that the worst thing you can do is stay invisible while you perfect your work . “Because perfection is a moving target. You’ll never feel ready. But if you start showing people what you’re doing, they’ll respond, and that response will push you forward faster than any amount of private practice ever could.” she says. 

The conversation turns to legacy, to creating work that lasts, that speaks to future generations. It’s a question that hangs differently over someone who’s been working for 22 years, who has illustrations in books that have been read by children across Armenia and beyond. Lilit references Sergei Dovlatov “A writer who writes for future generations is a failed writer” and extends the logic outward with the clarity of someone who’s thought about this.

“The same applies to illustrators, to all artists,” she says. “You can’t create authentically if you’re creating for approval or for some imagined legacy. You have to create for now. For this moment, this audience, this present. That’s where the real work is.”

There’s something almost defiant in this position, especially for an artist with her track record. She’s not trying to build a monument. She’s trying to make something that lives and breathes right now, that speaks to the people who see it in this moment, not in some abstract future.

“If something lasts, it lasts because it was real in its time, not because I was thinking about how it would look fifty years from now,” she explains. “That kind of calculation kills authenticity. It makes the work anxious, tentative. The best work is the work that’s fully committed to the present moment.”

I ask her if she ever thinks about what will happen to her illustrations after she’s gone, if there’s any sense of wanting to leave something behind. She shakes her head, but not dismissively.

“I think about my work being seen, being useful, being part of something,” she says. “But that’s different from thinking about legacy. That’s just… the natural continuation of what any artist does. You make something, it goes out into the world, it does what it does. You can’t control what happens to it after that. And trying to control it from the beginning just limits what it can be.”

The conversation circles back to something she mentioned earlier, that period when she couldn’t draw, when other work obligations took over almost completely.

“That was strange,” she says, and for the first time there’s something vulnerable in her voice. “It wasn’t dramatic in the way people might think. It wasn’t like I was in crisis and then art saved me. It was more subtle than that. During a depressing period that felt like a dead end, drawing was the only bright and achievable thing I could still do.”

She pauses, thinking about how to say this exactly right.

“Drawing helped me not forget who I was,” she continues. “When everything else was unclear, when I didn’t know what was happening or where I was going, the act of drawing reminded me: this is something you know how to do. This is something real about you. And that mattered.”

It’s not a romantic statement. It’s not healing-through-art rhetoric. It’s simpler and more profound than that: the recognition that there’s something true about yourself that you can return to, something reliable, something that doesn’t depend on circumstance or approval or anything external.

“I think everyone needs that,” she says. “Something they actually know how to do. Something they can trust. For me, that’s drawing. For other people, it might be something else. But that two-year period taught me not to take it for granted. It taught me why this matters.”

What’s striking about Lilit’s  life is how fluidly she moves between disciplines, illustration, comics, animation, music, film. She doesn’t talk about these as separate careers but as different expressions of the same creative vision. The flute work at the Ministry of Defence Orchestra wasn’t  a day job that funded her “real” art, it was part of the continuum. The illustration work isn’t a stepping stone to animation. The comic training in France wasn’t a detour from her visual practice. Each discipline reinforces the others, creating a kind of professional ecosystem where the lessons learned at the conservatory sharpen her panel composition, where animation timing informs how she thinks about visual rhythm, where musical precision bleeds into the decisiveness of her line work.

This integration is rare, especially in contemporary art, where specialization is often rewarded and demanded. Most artists are encouraged to find their lane, develop a signature style, and build a brand. Lilit has done something different. She’s built a practice where coherence comes not from a consistent aesthetic, but from a consistent approach to craft,  the same attention to precision and feeling, applied across different mediums. She knows what she’s drawing before she draws it. She trusts her training. She shows the work and lets the response teach her. These aren’t artist’s statements or philosophical positions. They’re habits of mind that transcend the medium.

That fluidity, that refusal to be compartmentalized, is ultimately what makes her work distinctive. It’s not about being good at many things. It’s about understanding, at a foundational level, that there’s no real distinction between them that visual storytelling and instrumental music are solving the same problems in different languages, and that mastery in one deepens mastery in all the others.