Rachel Hakimian Emenaker, “Deep Roots Among Fallen Trees”
- Democracy Chain
- 51 minutes ago
- 4 min read
by Liz Goldner
Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana, California
Continuing through May 11, 2025
The title “Deep Roots Among Fallen Trees” describes the creative and philosophical perspective that Rachel Hakimian Emenaker has gained from her self-described diasporic upbringing. The 32-year-old, of Armenian ancestry, grew up partly in Moscow, reveling in its then-vibrant performance and protest art scene (much of it a reaction to the previous Soviet era’s artistic oppression). She also grew up partly in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, a former Dutch colony on the north coast of South America whose profoundly mixed culture includes people of Middle Eastern, Indonesian, Indian and African ancestry.
Having moved four times while growing up and speaking several languages, Emenaker developed compassion for those displaced from their roots who, in the words of the artist, forged new “identities and histories through the fusion of old and new, memory and materiality.” Emenaker believes that diasporic communities blend their identities with one another while maintaining aspects of their ancestral cultures. In a vibrant installation we gain insight into how such new and distinctive cultural identities are formed.
Emenaker’s cosmopolitan background is the foundation on which she illustrates gatherings of people of all ages, races and backgrounds from the many places she has lived in and visited. The people in this immersive artwork, many accompanied by their children, meet each other, converse with each other, and even worship with each other.
The substructure of “Deep Roots Among Fallen Trees” is the supporting architectural features of cities where Emenaker has lived, including buildings, churches, stairways, and thoroughfares in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Suriname. The architecture is inspired by old family photos, memories of places that she has lived in and visited, with embellishments conjured up from her imagination. By portraying architecture, she symbolically engages with various cultural histories, languages, and identities. A Los Angeles neighborhood in the series, near her current home, is identified by a Zankou Chicken outlet, an ATM, and tropical foliage.
To create this unusual work, Emenaker has painted nearly life-size people, supported by the architecture, onto four canvas panels, each approximately 13 feet wide by six feet high, all hung from wooden frames from the ceiling. She has joined the four panels to create a welcoming, light-filled enclosure that elicits feelings of comradeship with other visitors in the gallery.
Her artistic method begins with outlining the figures, structures, passageways, cars and trees with white wax. Then she carefully paints the details of the many elements within the work with fabric dye, which she explains is permanent and cannot be changed once applied to the canvas. This technique necessitates that she work with her mistakes, creating a fluid, living work of art. The figurative aspects of her work reveal an artist who has assiduously practiced her craft to create finely wrought images of people and buildings.
“Fallen Trees” is a metaphor for Emanaker’s depiction of the many architectural structures that she has lived in and among, but which no longer exist. In these spaces loss and regeneration coexist, while her memories of the places they represent are simultaneously illusive and preserved. She muses that the architecture in her panels is more than just physical structures. It is shaped by many people, and carries imprints of those who have lived and moved within those spaces, along with their conversational and cultural exchanges. She adds that when trees fall, their ecosystems intertwine and regenerate into new species; just as people of the diaspora intertwine and regenerate. Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet, wrote, “Sorrow … pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow.”
Emenaker also includes a series of hand-dyed batik panels that depict three buildings that have been destroyed. In layered shades of blue, they are abstracted architectural remains, speaking to loss, memory and fragility. Ceramic tiles are arranged on the floor outside of the installation. These convey fragments of her daily life: cartoons, historical references, recipes, family text messages, and images detailing war and ongoing violence. Emenaker explains that “[t]he tiles act as metaphors for the compartmentalization required to live in a world overloaded with information.”
In 2011, at age 19, Emenaker left Moscow to attend Biola University to study political science, intending to attend law school. While taking studio art classes there, she discovered that “politics can inform art,” and decided to devote herself to the creative process. After graduation, she moved to Armenia for three years, working with mentally disabled Syrian Armenian refugees. She returned to California to immerse herself in her studio practice, receiving an MFA in painting from UCLA in 2024.
While still young and relatively new to the artistic vocation, Emenaker has acquired decades of interactive, meaningful life experiences. She mines these experiences in “Deep Roots Among Fallen Trees” to create an unusual and beautiful installation.
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/the-democracy-chain-1Liz Goldner is an award-winning art writer based in Laguna Beach. She has contributed to the LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET Artbound, Artillery, AICA-USA Magazine, Orange County Register, Art Ltd. and several other print and online publications. She has written reviews for ArtScene and Visual Art Source since 2009.