Anait’s artistic life has been characterized by a restless pursuit of experimentation, a life style she links with her father, who was an inventor. Invention is the cornerstone of art, as well as science or engineering, but the artist’s field of endeavor is less limited by the need for empirical practicality. Because the potential for art is perhaps broader, at least psychologically, than that of more utilitarian pursuits does not mean, however, that its practice is any less rigorous. Quite the contrary; because the freedom of choice is so unlimited, the burden of choosing a meaningful direction becomes more awesome than it is when potentials are fewer and more defined.
Anait’s earlier work included in this exhibition consists of figurative sculpture cast in bronze, a demanding technique, but one which did not hold lasting interest for the artist. Attracted to a 20th century technology, her next technical investigation was in resin casting, an even more stringent medium not only in its preparation and realization, but also because its toxic fumes require that the artist take informed precautions to prevent poisoning. Among the characteristics of resin that are particularly appealing to artists are its abilities to suspend color in space and at the same time to transmit light throughout its mass, depending upon the density of the color saturation employed. In other words, resin presents for the artist the potential of creating the illusion of colored light in space, in a manner analogous to what we experience in rainbows or sunsets.
Logically enough, Anait proceeded to experiment with creating the illusion of colored light suspended in space by constructing three dimensional environments. In the first of these the viewer passed through a series of small, enclosed spaces with white canvas walls and a mylar floor reflecting a single hue of the spectrum. Each discrete color-space was generated from above by fluorescent lights suspended over acrylic sheets of the appropriate color. Even more than the cast resin sculptures, Anait’s experiments with environmental art works, in this piece and another moving mylar room used for a performance, enabled the viewer to experience light in the atmosphere, dematerialized, not attached to a surface. This experience of color had been a major goal of many of the non-objective painters of the sixties, but in painting color ultimately remains at least in, if not on the surface of a material substance. Anait’s environmental pieces are part of a larger interest in Southern California manifested in the creation of spaces which allow the viewer to experience light and color in and of themselves. I suspect it is no coincidence that these kinds of art forms have become widespread in Southern California where spectacular natural phenomena are so prevailing in the natural environment itself.
Seen as the most recent products of an extended career, Anait’s reflection and integral holograms can easily be understood as organic developments of her interest in illusions of colored light in space. This is an important point, for the technology of the holographic process is so fascinating in itself that it can obscure the artist’s aesthetic intent. Still in its infancy, holography stands in relation to our notions of what art is today in a way similar to how we viewed photography in the 19th century; a technological miracle that is by nature mechanical rather than aesthetic. Indeed many so-called “art” holograms seen today are remarkable in their illusionism, but less than interesting with regard to subject matter. Reproductions of other art objects are especially popular as holographic subjects, but the ethics of presenting an art reproduction as a surrogate experience for the original is rightly being called into question today.
Throughout her career Anait has produced her work personally. This continues to be true in the case of the reflection holograms. Obviously she had to seek technical knowledge in the beginning, and has taken courses in holographic theory and techniques in an effort to keep up with the state of the art. She then applies what she learns herself, with her own laser exposing her own plates. She has continued to use reflection holography, when many others have moved to the more brilliant rainbow holography, because she does not want to give up the vertical parallax as this transition requires.
In the reflection holograms Anait’s imagery is simple - spheres, repeated egg shapes. I believe that these primary geometric forms allow us more easily to pay attention to the nature of the holographic illusion, coming off the plate into our own space, than more complex images. What her hologram presents us with is a three dimensional illusion in space, a kind of illusion we have never before experienced. The poetic, metaphorical quality of this technological development is such that it has led to the positing of holographic models for the nature of consciousness. For me, a literal reproduction of a familiar object limits its metaphoric potential, while Anait’s simple abstractions permit us closer access to the nature of the illusion being created in terms of its most essential aesthetic potential - a new means of perceiving light and color as form in space. Eventually the efforts of Anait and other artists interested in the aesthetics of holography should result in as many rich discoveries as the medium both promises and reveals in the scientific context.
Melinda Wortz
February, 1979