The figures sometimes dissolve or disintegrate
into their surroundings, occasionally into the
material of the painting itself. Kalenderian’s
landscapes are not the pastoral environments
of an idealized natural world, but rather a
reckoning of their own, impacted by crisis
and activated by abstraction. The paintings
demonstrate an inventive approach to paint
handling, where brush marks dissolve images,
and darkness is built up in layers, creates moments where the mechanism of painting is its
“Landscape (Huntington Gardens)” oil on canvas, 80” x 60” 2015
“Shanti Smoking”, 2014, Oil on canvas, 98” x 70”
own subject. The residue of previous compositions is revealed as Kalenderian utilizes a palette knife to uncover drawings, under-paintings, and previous versions of his subjects
and himself. This tension between erasure
by excavation and the layering of material
over previous images heightens the spectral
mood of Kalenderian’s paintings. Each work
contains the potential of a single moment rendered in many different forms; simultaneity as
an infinity of potential outcomes.