Born in Los Angeles and trained at UCLA, Raffi Kalenderian paints portraits, landscapes and interiors, using seemingly innocuous subjects as vehicles through which to explore the vivid, psychological power of paint. Variously compared to artists such as David Hockney, Alice Neel and Jonas Wood, he relishes the experimental properties of the medium, often using found imagery as well as working from live subjects. Included in Painters’ Painters at the Saatchi Gallery in 2016, Dasha (Chelsea Hotel) (2013) demonstrates the artist’s evocative use of lighting and perspective to create a sense of dreamlike suspension, as well as his fascination with contrasts in pattern and colour. Kalenderian has exhibited throughout Europe and America, and his work is held in institutional collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.