RUSLAN
Djavadian discovered Ruslan as a new emigré in the Armenian community of southern California. The 10-year-old had been unaware of Bunker while still in Yerevan but took keen interest in works featured in Djavadian’s collection and developed a similar formal and gestural impulse. Ruslan’s earlier paintings, not surprisingly, are filled with youthful exuberance and bravado, making liberal – but notably sophisticated – use of drip and, in particular, spray, relating his painting to graffiti and street art. Spraying and dripping in Ruslan’s hands are as much calligraphy as physical gesture, notation rather than expression per se. Having reached chronological maturity, Ruslan now works with a certain deliberation, building increasingly developed compositional contexts for his mark-making. But that mark-making, and the energy it embodies, continue unabated, a skill and a flare now harnessed but not reined in. Peter Frank
~ 70 ~
