The expressive paintings by the Armenian artist Armen Eloyan (b. 1966) are as beguiling and seductive as they are repulsive. According to Eloyan, a fine painting is like a good joke, the pieces must fit together. With his characteristic dark humour, colourful paint and thick black contours he reveals a dark universe, in which things are thrown out of kilter and the viewer is confronted with existential questions.

Cartoon-like figures emerge from mysterious landscapes, as though they have stepped out of a comic strip. They find themselves at the mercy of a harsh, dystopian reality. Eloyan's characters seem disturbed, melancholic and alcoholic, and appear to be in a state of existential meltdown. Almost masochistically they seem to passively accept their destiny.

Eloyan combines influences from street art and cartoons with references to the great pioneers of painting, such as Willem De Kooning, Caspar David Friedrich and Philip Guston. He presents a world in which familiar figures, whom we often associate with our own youth, have lost their innocence.

The publication is realised in collaboration with the FRAC des Pays de la Loire and the Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp.