LOS ANGELES, CA.- Armenian artist Narine Arakelian, born in Siberia May 13th 1979, made her mark in MASH Gallery’s two-part À GOGO show, first in The Loft at the Hollywood W Hotel; then at MASH’s DTLA inauguration. And consensus says the double-header was a veritable highlight of the many splendid celebrations surrounding Frieze LA 2020. Then again, noting the components, how could it be anything but?

“À GOGO is a disco deluge of contemporary art featuring an array of the world’s most vivid visualists,” stated MASH Gallery owner Haleh Mashim. “Every facet of this multifaceted, culturally diverse and technologically advanced exhibition is taken to the extreme. And every artist represents the best of all possible worlds.”

Considering such galore, it’s no surprise why the gallerist chose to include the work of Narine Arakelian. It’s no surprise either that Arakelian’s work stood its own alongside the likes of Domingo Zapata, whose 15-story Times Square mural helped make him Brooklyn’s “Most Influential Artist of 2019.”

Like Zapata, Arakelian is big on vivid spectacle. The Hollywood W’s “INITIATION” installation paired a statuesque, almost liquid-like rendering of last year’s critically-acclaimed “LOVE” canvas with her cinematically-inclined “Rebirth Subconscious,” then pierced the combine with a stunning scepter of metal and diamond-cut Murano glass. The effect, framed as it was by the fleeting yet immortal dreams to be beheld in the Hollywood skyline, created a deep-dive-of-the-mind. It also became something of a sensation.

In fact, Arakelian’s “INITIATION” was one reason this one night event was such a tremendous success -- and one reason the well-heeled crowd of art collectors, critics and enthusiasts couldn’t stop talking about À GOGO. But the A-list crowd, which included noted celeb collectors David Arquette and Sofia Milos, were not simply impressed by the museum-quality pop-up; they were also marveled to see a relative newcomer nearly steal the proverbial show.

So just who is this bright young artist and how can she command so much attention among such veterans in her very first L.A. showing?

The Siberian-born, Moscow-based spectacle-creator first burst on the international scene with 2017’s “L’Illusion du Mariage,” a collateral project of the 57th Biennale di Venezia. The effort so successfully out-spectacled the citywide spectacle that Arakelian was invited back for Venice’s 58th Biennale and given her own solo show at the Armenia Pavilion. She was also granted a chance to transform the the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo’s iconic 15th century spiral staircase into a striking multi-coloured lighthouse that served as a beacon for the entire town throughout the ten-day affair.

Like all of Arakelian’s works, “Mariage” explored a many-layered hierarchy of themes, in this case tradition and modernity, collective illusion and individual freedom, rebirth and immortality, as well as the eternal desire for a better life. It also took the Floating City’s fabled Sala Capitolare at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco to a place even the great fablist Tintoretto likely never imagined.

For À GOGO Arakelian followed up her attention-getting Hollywood W one-night-stand by gracing MASH’s Downtown inauguration with the actual artwork “LOVE.” The painting’s sister piece, “HOPE,” wowed the well-heeled crowds who slipped through Villa Versace during last year’s Art Basel Miami Beach; here in L.A. its sibling, which was paired with the nearly six-foot glass menagerie entitled “Rays,” did all that and then some. The then some encompassing the critical issues of gender, identity, culture, history, memory and representation that inform all of her work, and which will undoubtedly inform her career.

Arakelien’s journey from tundra to Tinsel Town traces back to the days of cave paintings and echoes the history of artistic epochs. Consider it the reveal of the seeker; the revelation of wanderlust; what we see when we look candidly at who we are, where we’ve been and where we’re going. That is to say, as the world turns, dig? In all its many-splendored dimensions.

As you might suspect, Arakelian’s “LOVE” painting sold on MASH Gallery’s opening night and museum bids are already coming in for “INITIATION.” And, as you might suspect, a cityful of grateful art aficionados are clamoring for the day that Arakelian next takes L.A. -- only now the clamor is for her to go solo.