"My husband and I are both Armenian, and this April is 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks in 1915," says Jackie Abramian, who opened the Haley Farm Gallery in January. "When we set up the gallery, we decided we would do something about this for the April show."

The first artist Abramian sought was Berj Kailian, a friend who lives in the Boston area. Kailian paints in strong, vivid colors. Abramian next consulted with friends about a Jewish artist to pair with Kailian for the show, as this spring commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Jewish holocaust as well.

"We were looking for someone who was a survivor but who was not presenting very dark art, who was not very negative, who was not as vibrant as Berj. They had to marry each other well to be in same gallery. Scott (our friend) suggested looking at Samuel Bak's work at the Pucker Gallery. He has beautiful monumental work that is portraying survival, not in dark imagery but in fact celebrating his survival. That's what we wanted to do, to convey the message that there is survival through creativity," Abramian says.

The elderly artists will not likely be attending the show opening on Saturday and Sunday, March 19 and 20, from 3-5. Their stories, however, are narrated through their artists statements, available at the gallery.

Berj Kailian was born in Keghi, Armenia in 1914. Her extended family was one of the last to be driven out of the country; her father, imprisoned and tortured, was asked to dig his own grave and was buried alive by the Turkish authorities. Only nine months old, Kailian was wrapped and tied to her mother's back and along with her three siblings began the forced marches through Armenia.

Through the arduous trip her siblings were lost and are presumed dead. Kailian was wrapped in old newspapers to be kept warm; she was given away three times but returned to her mother as they reached Yerevan, present-day Armenia's capital. Kailian's mother worked for the Armenian Red Cross, and they lived with other refugees in devastating conditions until 1919 when an uncle in the U.S. sent funds to travel to America via Russia and Japan. Berj Kailian now lives in Weymouth, Mass., and is perhaps the only Armenian-American woman artist survivor of the Armenian Genocide.

Samuel Bak was born in 1933 in Vilna, Poland. As Vilna came under German occupation in 1940, Bak and his family were forced into the Vilna ghetto, and later to a labor camp, from which he was smuggled and given refuge in a monastery. At the end of the war, his mother and he were the only surviving members of his extensive family. Bak says he has spent his life dealing with the artistic expression of the destruction and dehumanization that make up his childhood memories, creating a visual language to remind the world of its most desperate moments.

The friend who introduced Abramian to Bak's work, Scott-Martin Kosofsky, will read with award-winning Armenian poet Diana Der Hovanessian on April 17 at the gallery. Kosofsky has been increasingly producing notable books on Jewish customs and culture, such as "The Harvard Hillel Sabbath Songbook," "The Jews of Boston," "A Survivors' Haggadah," and "Esther's Children," an illustrated history of the Jews of Iran. Der Hovanessian, well respected around the world, has produced 22 books of poetry.

"We wanted to portray artists who have survived, celebrating survival and life, that yes, they did go through atrocities, but they are giving colors for others to celebrate life," Abramian says. "We want to present works of art that are pleasing to the eye, that have some kind of human message, that are socially conscious, and that are entertaining as well as educating, which is what art should be doing. Art should have a message. We hope by bringing different kinds of art to the gallery we will have fun exposing and being exposed to different types of art."

"Survival Through Creativity," featuring works by Berj Kailian and Samuel Bak, will be on exhibit at the Haley Farm Gallery, 178 Haley Road, Kittery, through April 30.