Ara Malikian 2020

Ara Malikian, made by Cricorps, looks like it's been painted with real gusto, those colours are just jumping off the surface, aren’t they? I can imagine the artist, Cricorps, totally immersed, wrestling with the canvas, throwing down those energetic strokes. It's like the painting is emerging from a haze of intuition and happy accidents. I mean, look at those yellows and oranges in the background, and how they swirl around the figure of the violinist. It almost feels like we’re seeing sound. And those marks are laid on thick, you can practically feel the texture. There’s this incredible physicality to the whole thing. The way the artist has depicted the violinist's hands, for example, it feels like we're seeing the music being made, right there on the canvas. Artists, like musicians, you know, they’re all in this ongoing conversation, riffing off each other, inspiring each other to see the world in new ways. It’s a beautiful thing.