Timothy Taylor

Armen Eloyan (b. 1966, Yerevan, Armenia) is primarily known for his irreverent, large-scale oil
paintings in vivid acid-toned shades. Adroitly balancing dark humor with a searing existential vision, Eloyan’s expressionistic paintings frequently reflect his comic take on the world through his love of cartoons, which poured into his television set as a young boy growing up in Soviet Armenia. Wry figures satirize global politics in the form of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, or Popeye. ‘Cartoons parody the culture, they reflect it in a way that’s entertaining but also profound,’ Eloyan says of his lifelong fascination. ‘How humans behave like animals sometimes – how ridiculous politics can be.’

Eloyan studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam under Luc Tuysmans before graduating in 2005. While studying in Amsterdam, Eloyan worked as a street artist, and the culture of graffiti – along with his interest in punk music and the spirit of anarchism – still imbues his sweeping brushstrokes with a rapid, chaotic spontaneity. Eloyan began exploring total abstraction in 2020, seeking to reinterpret the major movements of modern abstraction, from Pointillism and Impressionism to Action Painting, with a spiritual force free of language. His abstract works are jewel-toned and created on a monumental scale that was first exhibited in an institution at the Centre d’Art Neuchâtel in Switzerland in 2020. He continues to play with the border between abstraction and figuration in his present works, which stand at the intersection of performance, chance and intuition.

Eloyan’s works are held in public and private collections internationally, including the Frac des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, France; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp; The Aurora Museum, Shanghai; The Long Museum, Shanghai; the Parasol Foundation for Contemporary Art, London; By Art Matter Museum, Hangzhou; and others.