Anna Navasardian’s jeans are spattered with paint. Her gray T-shirt is also speckled with this unintentional design element.
Painting is her life. When she was a youngster living in New York City, any occasion to go to a toy store was a chance to get a new art set. Using paint pens, Sharpies, and markers, she whiled away hours at her sister’s tennis matches by drawing.
For much of her childhood, she was essentially banned from painting indoors because it was too messy, she laughingly recalls. In her mom’s defense, evidence of Navasardian’s current work is everywhere in her Brooklyn studio—the floor, the upholstery of her couch, and even the keyboard of her iPad.
After graduating from Carnegie Mellon in 2010, with no studio, she had to take her work back to her parents’ apartment in Manhattan. The first inkling of her big break came when her mother met Tanja Grunert, a gallery owner, at a party. Grunert gave Navasardian’s mom her card.
The aspiring artist put the email address on the card to good use. But after hitting the send button and getting no response one time, two times, 30 times, she changed her tactics. Navasardian went to the business card’s street address and “begged” the gallery owner to look at her work.
Grunert gave in, and once she did, she agreed to put two of Navasardian’s paintings in her gallery. Sure enough, they quickly sold. From that moment, Navasardian has been on the rise. Now represented by Claire Oliver Gallery, she is becoming recognized for her style, focused on figures with exaggerated features as well as vivid, unrealistic color schemes.
In 2014, she was named one of the “25 Best Artists 25 and Under,” by Complex, a bi-monthly lifestyle magazine and website that is part of Complex Media, which reaches over 60 million music, style, sports, and gaming enthusiasts monthly.
—Michelle Bova (DC’07)
