Meri Manukyan (b. 1976, in Yerevan, Armenia) is painter based on Los Angeles, California, USA. Finding connection is a primary focus in her art — connecting to nature, to places, and to people through contemplations on collective experiences. The collective experiences in Los Angeles, are the public parks, the hiking trails, and the beaches, all connected by infrastructure - residential streets, freeways, power lines,  palm trees and the LA River. All these things are to be found in Manukyan’s paintings, along with the flora and fauna she encounters in her daily life and travels.

Finding connections also means finding what is universal. In her portraiture and figure studies, Manukyan finds conduits for expression that communicate most powerfully and directly since many human gestures and facial expressions are understood universally.

The universal and personal intersect on the occasions when Manukyan explores her own identity by periodically diving into the deep well of Armenian art to “do a little dance” with her ancestors. And once again this is about finding connection, a connection to history and time itself.