ANTWERP.- Tim Van Laere Gallery is presenting Natur und Kultur, the third solo exhibition of Armen Eloyan. According to Eloyan a good painting is like a good joke, the pieces have to come together. With his characteristic dark humor, colourful paint and thick black contours, Eloyan reveals a dystopian world where things are thrown out of balance, confronting the viewer with existential questions.

Combining influences from street art and animated cartoons with references to great pioneers in painting such as Willem De Kooning and Philip Guston, Armen Eloyan (°1966, Yerevan - lives and works in Zurich and Antwerp) depicts a world where familiar figures, associated with our childhood, are stripped from every ounce of innocence. The painted figures seem to be in the midst of an existential meltdown as Eloyan paints them looking deranged, melancholic and alcoholic. The antropomorf figures tell grotesque narratives in which sex and violence prevail, referencing to the perverse and animalistic side of man.

For Natur und Kultur Eloyan brings together a series of new paintings and drawings in which he continues to build on the theme of the stump. Just like in the story of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, the animated wooden figures of Eloyan show a great lack of ethics, placing them in scenes that feel like a delirious fever dream. They are as cute as they are scary, a combination that gives them a peculiar charm and makes them appear adult and damaged.

His work is exhibited internationally with solo exhibitions at Frac des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; Kunstparterre, Munich; Passerelle Centra d'Art Contemporain, Brest; Art Halle Sankt Gallen, St Gallen; Center Culturel Suisse, Paris; and Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London. His work is part of public collections such as M HKA, Antwerp; Frac des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; collection AMC, Amsterdam; among others.