Anastasia Pelias was born in New Orleans, LA to a Greek immigrant mother and a 1st generation Greek-American father. She received her BFA from the Newcomb College of Tulane University in 1981 and her MFA from the University of New Orleans in 1996. Pelias has exhibited her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions at galleries and museums nationwide, including the McNay Art Museum, the Louisiana State University Museum of Art, the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, the Pensacola Museum of Art, Katzen Art Center at American University, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, and Heriard-Cimino Gallery. She has been featured in publications nationally including Hyperallergic, New American Paintings, ArtDaily, and New Orleans Art Review. Her work appears in permanent collections at the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Mobile Museum of Art, and in private and public collections throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Pelias’ work has been featured in notable exhibitions including, "The Whole Drum Will Sound: Women in Southern Abstraction", at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018, and "Per(Sister): Incarcerated Women in Louisiana" at the Newcomb Art Museum in 2019. Her recent solo exhibition at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in 2019, titled "Destiny is Destiny (sing my song)", included paintings and sculpture. In 2018, Pelias was commissioned to make a site-specific sculpture and painting installation, "mama", by the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, TX. In 2019, Pelias created a site-specific installation, titled "Etsi Einai i Zoï (So is Life)", on the island of Skopelos, Greece.