ARCO 2019 - Madrid

This was one of the artists that stuck out for me at the ARCO 2019 art Fair for his painterly style and humour. It reminded of the the Irish artist Neven La Hart due to the subject matter and also the confidence in the brush strokes. Maybe made to look quite 'on edge ' the strokes mirror the mindset of the perculiar character a Trunckman ill at ease with his own existence maybe? Leading to a deluge of toxicology and comfort seeking or maybe not?

As Armen Eloyan has said himself ´a good painting is putting together a good joke´

His absurd narratives are darlky existential compositions of anthropomorphic animals and figures. Although the colour pallet is distinctly different there is a motif similar to the late works of Philip Guston´s STUDIO paintings on 1969.

Philip Guston - Painting , smoking eating 1969.

At ARCO last year I was just picking out a few artist from the many and for the more accessible, well for me anyway. At these big a art fairs you always have the big names that exhibit their typical BRAND of art a lot of which is very similar but I have to say I still really like like Jeff Koons or Julian Opie. But looking beyond the name I was looking for stuff that was both visually arresting and contemplative. 

Victor Jaenada 1977- present

Jaenada is a Spanish/ Catalan artist based in Barcelona.This single piece of work that the artist had made directly onto the wall of the exhibition space was striking and seemingly simple. Jaenada has adopted a romantic – punk attitude to his work. It´s romantic in it´s attempts to process transendental themes and punk in its immediacy The lasting impression from his work is something solid. 

Stephen Balkenhol - 1957- present

The pieces I have seen from Stephen Balkenhol over the past number of years at ARCO have always appealed to me. It´s a physical experience and appreciation. He uses soft woods such as Douglas fir and poplar and this along with the painted element adds a freshness and POP ART style to his work while managing similtaneously to reflect folk or primitive art.His work is very reminiscant of the Irish sculptor Janet Mullarney in that it holds a shamenistic sense or maybe this is due to the materials used and the nieve style of the works.

Lin May Saeed is a Iraqi / German artist based in Frankfurt whose works  meander around the relationships between animals and us or the natural and ourselves. The majority of her sculptures are comprised of styrafoam and paint. The works normally in relief depict visual narratives of fantasy like animals in tales of these relationships torn and separated.