ANTWERP.- Tim Van Laere Gallery presents Day by Day Part II, the first Belgian solo exhibition of Armenian-born artist Armen Eloyan.
In Armen Eloyan's impasto paintings a wonderful pathos, brutality, sensuality and a sense for the grotesque all coexist in some post-disaster condition. Eloyan creates a mood, and this mood, this state of mind echoes throughout the exhibition. Most canvases have enigmatic titles like The Light called „Day“, and the Darkness called „Night“ and Jekaterina Jekaterina, but are populated by a familiar subject matter such as cartoon characters, teapots or tomato-heads. These characters are drawn in broad painterly strokes, but come across as extremely powerful. “It is based on a cartoon, but it is not a real cartoon, it's an abstract vision of it. It's faking up a painting. If I paint for example Coming-Painting, it's a De Kooning, but done much faster and looser. Willem De Kooning and Philip Guston guide me through this.” states Eloyan. By using diptychs for Rabbit and Bear or Bear and Rabbit, The Door and Dracula Eloyan mines the vaguely existential, as much as he wants to do the opposite of the Minimalists. Eloyan's works all relate to the body, the execution of his paintings is a brutally physical act. Day by Day Part II is an exhibition imbued with Eloyan’s drive to celebrate the act of painting and the uncompromising need to delve beneath the layers of pure aesthetic.
Armen Eloyan (°1966, Yerevan, Armenia) graduated at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in 2005. He lives and works in Zurich. Recent solo exhibitions have included Armen Eloyan: Paintings, Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, 2009; Bees left it or bears do it, Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich, 2009; Local Gothic and Culture, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, St Gallen, 2008; Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris, 2007; and Two Feet in One Shoe, Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London, 2007. Group exhibitions include A Vision of Central Europe, curated by Luc Tuymans, Bruges, 2010; Until the End of the World, AMP Gallery, Athens, 2009; Ventriloquist, curated by Emma Dexter, Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, 2009; and INVOLVED, curated by Philippe Pirotte, ShanghART Gallery & H Space, Shanghai, 2008.
