One of Hagop’s “Aristocrats” paintings is a woman wearing a draping headscarf and an embroidered blouse. Her features are pretty and delicate, with small petal lips and thin brows. But this is not just a depiction of a Middle Eastern woman—a large dragonfly with its wings spread obstructs the view of most of her face. “Metaphysically, the dragonfly represents the breaking of an illusion, and the fact that it’s over her eyes [shows] the breaking of the illusion of the Middle Eastern woman.”