Humour, mischievousness and a youthful puzzlement at cultural mores and legacies define the precociously talented work of the young Armenian multi-media artist Garush Melkonian.

Having lived and studied in a number of countries in his teens, Melkonian is currently completing his bachelor degree in contemporary art at the École Nationale Supèrieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. This cross-national experience has informed much of Melkonian’s practice allowing him to effortlessly engage and react to the frenzied pulse of global cultural change. His work reflects this pace, employing a wide variety of media from analogue and digital photography, video, design, internet-generated content, interactive sound installations and conceptual sculpture.

While still in the exploratory stage of his practice, Melkonian has developed a focused interest in the way culture and politics intertwine, shaping our social and individual identities. Technology is the key in this process and Melkonian’s work displays an ambivalent attitude to it. Seen as an essential mechanism of power and ideology, technology is also embraced by the artist as a means for subversion and freedom. This is reflected in the satirical, often absurdist aspect of Melkonian’s various series, such as the photo-montage suite ‘The Related’, 2012, included in Lusadaran’s collection. Pointedly gesturing to the 20th century’s more anarchic artistic movements like Dada, surrealism and Sots-art, such works also make use of aesthetic devices like appropriation, found imagery, kitsch and low-brow humour.

What puts these works apart is their emotional dimension. Despite their conceptual framework, Melkonian’s imagery always affects directly as it taps into our collective experiences, nostalgias, fears and desires. It is their almost child-like gentleness and simplicity that makes the work of this young artist so incisive.

Vigen Galstyan, 2015