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 2019 66Pounds, Terrain Biannual, 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
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 Manger, 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
SoftwarePremiere
Illustrator
Touch Designer
Procreate