Born in 1992 in Los Angeles, Rachel Hakimian Emenaker's artistic practice tells the story of diasporic cultures. With an Armenian-Syrian heritage, an American citizenship, and an upbringing in Suriname and Russia, she immersed herself in conflicting narratives, aesthetics and histories. Through art, she explores architecture and space as a vessel for collective memory. Her painted installations across mediums, from batik fabrics to stacked ceramics and monumental beadwork, combine traditional Eastern and Western artistic traditions with craft practices. Each of her artwork reflects on the history of global trade routes and recreates symbolic spaces, in which erasure of collective memory and experience of migration collide. 

A recent graduate of UCLA’s MFA program, Rachel Hakimian Emenaker has shown her works in solo and group exhibitions including in the 25 under 25 exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego. Most recently, she was the recipient of the Dedalus Foundation MFA Fellowship and her works have been acquired by prominent collections.

Rachel Hakimian Emenaker

10.100 Prayers_100 Fists, Crystal glazed porcelain on rope, 132”, 2024

11.Detail

12.Detail

14.Detail

Installation

100 Prayers: 100 Fists

Born in 1997 in Shenzhen, China, Baoying Huang lives and works in Long Island City, NY. Huang uses art as a portal to tell her story of living between two cultures: being a citizen of China, and a resident of the U.S. Living in the ongoing pandemic and the antagonism between the two nations, Huang’s paintings depict the compartmentalized environments that she lives in, and her emotional connection with domestic themes as she raises questions about the meaning of home.

Huang considers her paintings as containers of “nomad” thoughts. The aspiration of wanting to express herself through language and conversation is compromised and compressed into painting materials and visual forms. Colors in these paintings are filtered and dimmed, which points to a sense of coldness she observes in her repetitive living patterns during the pandemic– being trapped in a humanless land and only able to see the traces she left in a space. The distinction between the air-tight surface and scratchy brush marks represents the paradox between hyperrealism and a gauzy, blurred romanticism. Huang believes in the power of painting because of its open-endedness communication. She is pointing at the mundane which all human beings can perceive, and hopes the spark in the dark can eventually make a good blaze. Painting is a practice to process the melancholy that comes from the present disconnect and allergy to the past; painting is Huang’s reconciliation to the outside world and the reflection of the internal mind.

Baoying Huang

Tranquility base (Modern Ruin with Red, Blue and Yellow) &#8211; 46

Tranquility base (Modern Ruin with Red, Blue and Yellow) &#8211; 48

Tranquility base (Modern Ruin with Red, Blue and Yellow) &#8211; 47

Tranquility base (Modern Ruin with Red, Blue and Yellow) &#8211; 49

Painting

6 P.M.

Tranquility base (Modern Ruin with Red, Blue and Yellow) &#8211; 43

Tranquility base (Modern Ruin with Red, Blue and Yellow) &#8211; 44

Tranquility base (Modern Ruin with Red, Blue and Yellow) &#8211; 45

Plush Love

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100 Prayers: 100 Fists

6 P.M.

Plush Love

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