Anaeis is an Iranian-Armenian interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes material  based-installations, sculpture, costume, music, new media arts, performance, and film. The primary subject matter of Anaeis’s work is related to artifacts and visions of the future, both utopian and dystopian. The future in her work is a tool Anaeis utilizes to offer her audience a framework through which to reflect upon the present. Through her installations and performance pieces, she offers the audience an opportunity to become time travelers on an experiential journey of a theoretical discourse. Most notably, her work manifests in bizarre archeological, geological, and environmental installations that serve as relics of future visions or storylines she calls findings. Her findings serve as cautionary tales of different possibilities of our precarious future.


Anaeis works within a dichotomy of capitalism and the environment in order to address the destructive relationship between the two and warn of an increasingly bleak future. In her Kuá Hakké Springs National Park body of work, Anaeis uses sand, polymer, and discarded clothing to create 6ft boulders from a future where our synthetic waste has ingrained itself into the very DNA of the planet. The narratives Anaeis creates through her “findings” are set in a future thousands of years away, where society conducts itself in “modern” cities as well as an eclectic collection of tribes. Like the planet itself, these societies in Anaeis’s “findings” have been genetically influenced by the environment’s evolution. Each of her body of work, which make up a series, can be thought of as a chapter in a book: connected, cohesive, and sequential.


Individual Exhibitions

2021 They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds, Curated by She Loves Collective, Storefront, 127 n. Artsakh st. Glendale, California

2019 66Pounds, Terrain Biennial, curated by Association of Hysterics Curators, 5117 Argus dr. Los Angeles, CA 90041

2015 6007, D300 Gallery, California Institute of the Arts, Santa Clarita, California

2014 Deceptions of Utopic Travelers, The Wild Beast Courtyard, California Institute of the Arts, Santa Clarita, California

2011 The Shortest Distance between Two Points, A402 Gallery, California Institute of the Arts, Santa Clarita, California

Group Exhibitions

2021 106th Armenian Genocide Commemoration, Curated by She Loves Collective, Public Installations, Glendale, California

2021 Don’t Turn the Clock back on Women, International Street Art, in support of strajk_kobiet, Los Angeles, California

2020 We Are The Rifles Our Ancestors Didn’t Have, Curated by She Loves Collective, Public Performance, Downtown Los Angeles, California

2020 The Rifles Our Ancestors Didn’t Have, Curated by She Loves Collective, Public Performance, Downtown Los Angeles, California

2019 Amphibium, Irrational Exhibits, curated by Deborah Oliver, Bendix Building (Track 16, Monte Vista, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Gallery 515, Mutable Studios), Los Angeles, CA

2018 Skulpturengarten, Curated by Ichiro Irie, The Reef L.A., Los Angeles, California

2018 Tran(s)mundo, Curated by Ichiro Irie, Jaus Gallery, Los Angeles, California

2018 Burning Man LA Decompression, curated by Dale Youngman, Los Angeles State Historic Park, Los Angeles, California

2018 Other worlds, curated by Martin Durazo, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, California

2018 Feminine Anthem, curated by Thinh Nyguyen, Kamikaze at POST, Los Angeles, California

2016 (Im)Possibilities // Defying Misfortune, Common Ground Collective, Sunland, California

2013 100 PERCENT 2, D301 Gallery, California Institute of the Arts, Santa Clarita, California

2011 The Thirteenth Grade, Curated by Mary Anna Pomonis, POST Los Angeles, California

2009 What If This Was your Life? Collaborative Art Installation, Hoover Gallery, Glendale, California


Selected Bibliography

2020 https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-12-16/armenian-monuments-are-at-risk-in-azerbaijan-los-angeles-artists-respond

2020 https://www.artpapers.org/memory-work-and-militancy-hakopian/

2020 https://hyperallergic.com/597238/we-are-the-rifles-our-ancestors-didnt-have-female-collective-protests-for-armenians/

2020 https://www.artequeacontece.com.br/coletivo-femminino-usa-rifles-simbolicos-para-chamar-atencao-para-guerra-na-asia/

2020 https://hyperallergic.com/594750/she-loves-collective-the-rifles-our-ancestors-didnt-have/

2019 https://terrainexhibitions.org/los-angeles-ca

2018 https://artillerymag.com/skulpturengarten/

2018 https://artandcakela.com/2018/08/11/two-out-of-the-ballpark-shows-at-charlie-james-gallery/

2018 https://www.quietlunch.com/other-worlds-charlie-james-gallery-chinatown-la/

2015 http://blog.calarts.edu/2015/12/16/calarts-student-anaeis-ohanian-teleports-us-into-a-dystopic-future/

2015 http://scvnews.com/2015/04/06/calarts-takes-home-8k-for-scholarship-program/

2015 http://www.chiquitacanyon.com/2015/04/chiquita-awards-found-art-scholarships-to-calarts-students/

2011 http://onehundredpercentrag.blogspot.com/2011/08/horizontal-totem-pole-exquisite-corpse.html

2011 https://anotherrighteoustransfer.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/the-thirteenth-grade-curated-by-mary-anna-pomonis-post-july-26-2011/

Fellowships

2018 Studio Assistant , Martin Durazo

2017 Studio Manager, ThinhStudio

2017 Studio Assistant, Paulin Paris

2015 Some Place Chronicles: Los Angeles Arts Commission

Lectures and Seminars

2016 California Institute of the Arts, Intro to Pataphysics, Santa Clarita, CA

2014 California Institute of the Arts Accepted Students Event, Santa Clarita, CA

Awards and honors

2019 Finalist, National Parks Arts Foundation Residency at Death Valley National Park.

2015 First Place, Chiquita Canyon Found Art Scholarship Program

2013 California Institute of the Arts Grant

Education

2016 California Institute of the Arts,

BFA in Fine Arts

Minor in Science and Math


Languages

Java via Processing3

Arduino

Armenian


Software

Adobe Suite:

Premiere

Illustrator

Photoshop

InDesign

Procreate