Gayané & Manouk the cat 2019

Cricorps made this painting of Gayané and Manouk the cat using what looks like acrylic or maybe gouache paint, you can see the brushstrokes really clearly. It’s all about laying down these confident, graphic marks; each one building the image but also remaining visible as a discrete gesture. I love the way the planes of the face are built up, how these angular forms create a convincing likeness, even as they break the image down into abstract shapes. There’s real texture in the cat's fur, built up from these energetic little brushstrokes, contrasted with the flat blocks of colour in the background. That pink shape could be anything: a shoulder, a blanket, who knows? It’s so satisfying when painting embraces this kind of ambiguity. It reminds me a little of those early Fauvist portraits by someone like Derain or Vlaminck, where colour and form are pushed to the point of almost bursting. Art is like a game of telephone, isn't it? Ideas get passed on, transformed, and reinterpreted across generations.