Having graduated from V. Bryusov Institute of Foreign Languages in Yerevan, Mayis Vardanyan, nevertheless, did not pursue a career in linguistics. Determined to dedicate himself to creative practice, he took up photography and design in the late 1970s. In 1984, he began working at the Republican Design Center of Armenia and became a member of the USSR Designers' Union. 

Vardanyan has collaborated with fellow artist Kamo Nigaryan in the design of several museum expositions and has specialised in the photography of industrial products for advertising purposes. In his independent creative practice, Vardanyan worked in the vein of classical social-documentary photography. His most important work in this regard is the detailed documentation of the 1988 Liberation Movement demonstrations in Armenia, which were collated and presented in his photobook Beginning.

Vigen Galstyan, 2016