Nathalie Kardjian is a multidisciplinary, cross-cultural artist based in Los Angeles. Her practice centers on storytelling across visual, cinematic, and performative forms, using abstraction to hold memory, displacement, and lived experience. Working across painting, photography, film, and documentary theater, her work explores the psychological traces of resilience and survival through personal and collective narratives.
Nathalie draws inspiration from the world around her, the struggles her generation has faced, her own lived experiences, and the human stories that unfold every day. Anything can spark creativity, but for her, true creation begins when there is nothing left to lose—a philosophy that shapes a practice driven by instinct, emotional honesty, and deep observation.
Alongside her studio work, Nathalie is the founder, director, and producer of Hair Lock Stories, an ongoing documentary project examining identity, connection, memory, and resilience across borders. The project extends beyond film into live documentary theater, exhibitions, and printed works. She has curated community-based exhibitions and pop-ups at her DTLA studio and expanded her visual language into merchandise featuring her original artwork. As a performer, she has acted in short films, commercial projects, and narrative storytelling.
After years of living and working in San Francisco and the Bay Area, Nathalie developed a parallel career in technology as an AI conversation designer and data analyst. Traveling between the Bay Area and Los Angeles, she navigates the spaces between logic and emotion, systems and storytelling. This oscillation informs her artistic language, where analytical precision meets human vulnerability, shaping a practice rooted in both intelligence and instinct.
Selected Exhibitions & Performances
- Rizo Corp Gallery – Los Angeles, 2026
- MC Gallery, New York — Group Exhibition, 2025
- Playhouse Merced — Documentary Theater Performance, 2025
- PauHaus Gallery, Los Angeles — Group Exhibition, 2025
- The Little Raven Gallery, San Francisco — Group Exhibition, 2025
- Pershing Square Building, Los Angeles — Curated and Group Exhibitions, July 2024; October 2024; November 2024
- Manny’s, San Francisco — Group Exhibition, February 2024
- Dance Mission Theater, San Francisco — Documentary Theater Performance, 2024
- McSweeney’s, San Francisco — Literary & Art Event, May 2023