Dzoraget 1990

Petros Malayan made this watercolor painting, Dzoraget, in 1990, and right away I’m struck by how he’s building a world out of water. The paint is thin, washy, and the architecture is constructed with stains and bleeds of color. Look at the way the roofs overlap; they're not so much built as they are layered, one on top of the other in shades of grey and blue, like thoughts. There's a very clear sense of process. There's a touch of folk art here, almost reminiscent of Milton Avery, in the way the townscape is built up of simple shapes. It’s not quite abstraction, but it embraces the ambiguity of representation. Malayan isn’t interested in fixed meanings, but multiple interpretations – in seeing the world not as it is, but how it feels.