Tamara Lalayan | 'Irises, 2023' | 60x100cm

Code: MATL2303

Artist: Tamara Lalayan

Title: Irises

Medium: Acrylic On Canvas

Size: 60x100cm

Year: 2023

A drift of irises breaks across a pale, buttery ground. The petals gather in the centre of the canvas like a hedge in full bloom. Deep indigo, violet, and cobalt press together, thick with palette knife work. A single flower opens near the middle in soft pink and crimson, the warm heart of the arrangement.

Tamara paints with confidence and speed. You can see the knife strokes lifting off the surface. Paint drips run down from the blooms into the yellow field below, as if the flowers are still wet with rain. The lower half of the canvas holds their reflection, cooler and looser, dissolving into aqua and pale green.

The composition sits low and horizontal. It reads like a garden bed seen at eye level, or a bank of irises along still water. There is no fixed horizon. The yellow behind them could be morning light or open sky. The mood is quiet but not still. The blooms feel alive, jostling, leaning into each other.

Irises have a long history in painting, from Van Gogh onward. Tamara joins that lineage with her own gestural, contemporary hand. She favours florals rendered with generous impasto and a strong sense of atmosphere. The finished surface rewards close looking. Step in and the paint becomes sculptural. Step back and the flowers resolve into a single glowing mass.

Signed Tamara in the lower right, framed in a clean black float frame that sharpens the yellow ground and holds the energy of the paint.