Painting becomes an act of concealment within the works of Julfa, as color and paint echo the ways cultural memory is erased; what ultimately survives is usually incomplete. While inspired by Armenian history, Julfa speaks to a broader pattern of cultural erasure.

Julfa emerges from the charged environment of the studio: ongoing paintings, bottles of Armenian pigment, found objects, and other fragments left behind by a fast-paced process of making. Each work within Julfa begins with layers of archival photographs, folk imagery, and sheet music gathered from Armenian books. As other paintings develop nearby, these materials accumulate incidental traces and marks left by the movement of the studio itself. Informed by chance, the works are discovered and recognized as a residue of a larger process. What remains is then brought forward as standalone pieces, allowing overlooked fragments to become images in their own right. The buried imagery within Julfa functions as a symbolic record rather than a deliberate illustration. The destruction of the medieval Armenian cemetery at Julfa in Nakhchivan (where thousands of intricately carved khachkars (cross-stones) were systematically destroyed) stands alongside countless examples throughout history, from the devastation of heritage sites during wartime to the loss of Indigenous landscapes through colonization. Though separated by geography and time, these acts share a common purpose: to erase all evidence of a people’s existence.

Hidden beneath each surface within the body of work, memory remains even when it can no longer be fully seen. This partial visibility reflects resilience. Julfa asks what remains after monuments fall and histories are rewritten. It asks about the consequences of indifference, on the ease with which cultural destruction can unfold when our world chooses not to see.