Anna Condo’s artistic journey spans continents, mediums, and decades—but at its heart is a singular devotion to beauty, mystery, and emotional clarity. Born in Armenia and raised in France, with roots in film, photography, and poetry, Condo brings a director’s eye and a poet’s soul to everything she touches. From intimate flower portraits to cinematic explorations of identity, her work is at once classical and radical. In COLOR CODE, her latest AI-driven series, Condo fuses her lifelong obsessions—color, character, emotion—into a surreal yet precise theater of the psyche. In this conversation, we explore how intuition, technology, and tenderness collide in her evolving creative universe.
How did the idea for COLOR CODE first emerge, and how did the pieces begin to cohere into a series?
The idea started intuitively—I was playing with AI-generated textures, lighting, and overlays, and noticed how each color palette and image triggered a different narrative—like an ensemble cast or film stills. The pieces began talking to each other and slowly formed a kind of family, color-coded and built like a theater of emotion.
What is your creative process like when working with AI on COLOR CODE?
It’s very iterative. I begin with a mood or color in mind and prompt the AI accordingly, refining with each pass. I also manipulate outputs through collage, layering, or retouching. I think of it more like directing than generating—there’s choreography, even in the glitches.
Would you be open to sharing any images of your process—or perhaps a photo of your workspace?
My workspace is minimal by choice—I work best in bed, where ideas drift in like lucid dreams. My process is simple: I keep going until something sparks, that quiet tingle that says, “that's it, that's you.”
When did you first begin exploring AI in your practice, and how has it allowed you to expand or reimagine your creative boundaries beyond traditional media?
I started seriously experimenting with AI in 2022. It became a new way to merge my love for all art forms and aesthetics—like any other medium I’ve worked with. But with AI, I can stretch reality even further and create entire worlds that once only lived in my imagination.
You come from a background in film and photography. How has that foundation influenced your current work?
It taught me to be a careful editor, a precise framer, and a deliberate colorist. Every work demands emotional clarity. Whether it's a photograph or an AI piece, I’m always asking: Does this piece breathe?
Are there any past works you’d like to highlight—pieces that still resonate with you, references that have inspired you, or meaningful moments in your life that shaped your practice?
Some of my early flower photographs still resonate—quiet, intimate moments where the flowers taught me so much about myself. A few experimental videos exploring identity and the mask also stand out—those themes keep returning in new forms. And my earlier AI works, where I began blending my passions for art, nature, food, theatre, the circus world, and floral still lives.
In what ways does the digital and AI art movement feel similar to—or different from—past movements you’ve witnessed or been a part of?
Same old, same old—like any new movement, there’s excitement, resistance, experimentation, and excess. But what’s different is the speed. AI shifts faster than any medium I’ve worked with. It’s less about mastering tools and more about staying in conversation—with the technology, like a dance with the machine, with myself, with what it brings out in others. Like past movements, it’s full of potential and contradiction. What matters most to me is making sure the work stays authentic, personal, and human—emotionally as well as visually.
Nan Goldin shot this portrait of Condo in her living room in the late 1990s.
You’ve always loved flowers—both in your photography and in your AI work. What do flowers represent to you, in life and in art?
To me, flowers are, like us humans, contradictions—fragile and fierce, ephemeral yet eternal. Their soul, seduction, and silence hold the true me
The colors in this series are striking—bold, nuanced, and evocative. What meanings do colors hold for you, particularly in a series titled COLOR CODE?
Color is how I feel and see the world—always have. Color is emotion made visible. Color is like music, vibrating through memory, space, and the soul. Each tone in this series was chosen not just for beauty, but for the psychological space it creates. COLOR CODE is about using colors as a key to unlock all my senses.
In COLOR CODE, many figures appear with their faces hidden—by flowers, hands, or turned away. Who are these beings to you, and what emotional or symbolic state do they inhabit?
They are my friends, not imaginary. They exist somewhere between human and archetype—symbolic more than specific. Their hidden faces invite curiosity, not projection. They carry ambiguity, grace, even defiance. They are who we might be in dreams, in an alternate universe. They mirror the hidden parts of us—the unspoken, the complex, the quietly true. In a way, they are soul portraits.
Your work often radiates a quiet but potent sense of femininity and strength. Do you see those qualities as reflections of your own inner world?
Absolutely. I believe strength can be soft, and softness can be radical. Femininity, for me, isn’t an aesthetic—it’s a vital force. A presence that doesn’t need to shout or fight to be heard.
What’s inspiring your next chapter as an artist?
I’m drawn to storytelling and satire—short musical videos, AI puppetry, character-driven narratives. Still rooted in art, culture, and the surreal, but more layered in humanism, irony, and cultural friction. I’m always after that feeling when something is both absurd and true.
