Armen Eloyan
26 Aug - 14 Oct 2006
Armen Eloyan
Comic-related Paintings
26 August-14 October, 2006
The Armenian, Armen Eloyan (born 1966), has lived and worked in Amsterdam and Zurich since getting his degree from the Rijksakademie in 2005. He became known to the Swiss public through his works on paper at the group exhibition Villa Jelmini (2006) in the Kunsthalle Bern. The Bob van Orsouw Gallery is pleased to dedicate to the artist his first larger solo exhibition, showing works from the cycle Comic-related paintings. Romping in the usually tightly-packed paintings is a motley crew of comic figures, familiar to us as mass-culture phenomena and pop icons. Nevertheless, in contrast to conventional comic strips, Eloyan’s paintings are not arranged in sequential, pictorial order. Rather the heroes are only set into the pictures in fragments, thereby pushing the narrative to the background in favor of the formal composition. Eloyan's touch is spontaneous and vehement. Nothing but a few light brushstrokes suggest some individual areas, while the remaining picture plane is treated to an elaborate color scheme and consolidation. In the small-scale interiors the heroes often act alone on theater-like stages or move through darkened rooms that, despite their perspectival opening, have a claustrophobic feel.
The large-scale interiors and landscapes are rendered very convincing by the impact of the paint. Layer is piled on layer so that the texture of the canvases have the effect of an explosive substance. Orderly rules of representation are suspended, while the paintings' borders are brought to breaking point by their contents. The genesis of the painting follows no rationale, but unfolds as a performance of self-transcendence. The painterly process is a physical act, a highly concentrated action during the course of which the body’s movement is inscribed into the picture. Led on by a Dionysian will to subdue the painting material, the artist surrenders himself to the dynamism of the incalculable.
Eloyan’s artistic intention is rooted in a desire basic to the tradition of painting, namely, depicting the relationship between volume, space, shadow and light as balanced forces. The fact that he helps himself to a depository of easily readable comic figures not only makes up the originality of his pictorial vocabulary, but also its irony. Especially in the large-scale paintings it is not the horizon that determines the spatial lines of force but the characters’ empty gaze. Simple objects, such as automobiles, are also anthropomorphized. By becoming “ensouled” with the power of sight, they bring a variety of orientations into the picture. The
anonymity of the comic figures makes them into an ideal test set-up for painting experiments, but also into a projection screen for the chasms of existence. Eloyan caricatures the heroism of his troupe when he sets a small figure between oversized book covers who is threatened by his own shadow, or swings him from a gallows in an open landscape. At the same time he transforms the figures into symbolic protagonists in a world of illusions that “although these never pretend to be other than illusions, yet call up in us feelings and attitudes that normally result from an encounter with real human beings. “(J.-P. Sartre)
Birgid Uccia
Opening: Friday, 25 August 2006 from 6 to 9 pm.
Followed by a summer party on the Löwenbräu premises.
© Armen Eloyan
Tv room, 2006
Oil on canvas
250 x 560 cm
Comic-related Paintings
26 August-14 October, 2006
The Armenian, Armen Eloyan (born 1966), has lived and worked in Amsterdam and Zurich since getting his degree from the Rijksakademie in 2005. He became known to the Swiss public through his works on paper at the group exhibition Villa Jelmini (2006) in the Kunsthalle Bern. The Bob van Orsouw Gallery is pleased to dedicate to the artist his first larger solo exhibition, showing works from the cycle Comic-related paintings. Romping in the usually tightly-packed paintings is a motley crew of comic figures, familiar to us as mass-culture phenomena and pop icons. Nevertheless, in contrast to conventional comic strips, Eloyan’s paintings are not arranged in sequential, pictorial order. Rather the heroes are only set into the pictures in fragments, thereby pushing the narrative to the background in favor of the formal composition. Eloyan's touch is spontaneous and vehement. Nothing but a few light brushstrokes suggest some individual areas, while the remaining picture plane is treated to an elaborate color scheme and consolidation. In the small-scale interiors the heroes often act alone on theater-like stages or move through darkened rooms that, despite their perspectival opening, have a claustrophobic feel.
The large-scale interiors and landscapes are rendered very convincing by the impact of the paint. Layer is piled on layer so that the texture of the canvases have the effect of an explosive substance. Orderly rules of representation are suspended, while the paintings' borders are brought to breaking point by their contents. The genesis of the painting follows no rationale, but unfolds as a performance of self-transcendence. The painterly process is a physical act, a highly concentrated action during the course of which the body’s movement is inscribed into the picture. Led on by a Dionysian will to subdue the painting material, the artist surrenders himself to the dynamism of the incalculable.
Eloyan’s artistic intention is rooted in a desire basic to the tradition of painting, namely, depicting the relationship between volume, space, shadow and light as balanced forces. The fact that he helps himself to a depository of easily readable comic figures not only makes up the originality of his pictorial vocabulary, but also its irony. Especially in the large-scale paintings it is not the horizon that determines the spatial lines of force but the characters’ empty gaze. Simple objects, such as automobiles, are also anthropomorphized. By becoming “ensouled” with the power of sight, they bring a variety of orientations into the picture. The
anonymity of the comic figures makes them into an ideal test set-up for painting experiments, but also into a projection screen for the chasms of existence. Eloyan caricatures the heroism of his troupe when he sets a small figure between oversized book covers who is threatened by his own shadow, or swings him from a gallows in an open landscape. At the same time he transforms the figures into symbolic protagonists in a world of illusions that “although these never pretend to be other than illusions, yet call up in us feelings and attitudes that normally result from an encounter with real human beings. “(J.-P. Sartre)
Birgid Uccia
Opening: Friday, 25 August 2006 from 6 to 9 pm.
Followed by a summer party on the Löwenbräu premises.
© Armen Eloyan
Tv room, 2006
Oil on canvas
250 x 560 cm