Luciana Abait (day + night)

Abyss II, 2020
Mixed media on paper transferred onto outdoor fabric
100 x 100 inches

The space for Luciana Abait’s work was provided by The Sallas Foundation

About the work:
I am specifically presenting this idyllic mountain landscape as a way to provide spectators a moment of wonder and peace in the face of the worldwide catastrophic pandemic we are all living in. I chose this location because the contrast between the romantic Mountain View and the deserted industrial/ warehouse typical Los Angeles location creates an extremely unexpected and interesting dialogue about urban civilization and its relationship with nature.

 

Artist Statement
My work invites viewers to reimagine nature through manipulated photographic landscapes, installations and photo-sculptures. Natural landscapes and human-made utilitarian objects or structures are twisted, scaled out of proportion, or impossibly adapted to new roles where they coexist in a magical reality. These eerie, hyper-real psychological landscapes range from sci-fi to storybook, encompassing parables that critically reflect upon human beings and their fraught relationship with the natural environment. These intricate interrelations portray the aggressive intrusion of humans into nature, but also imagine alternate (or perhaps future) realities marked by adaptation and assimilation, isolation and displacement.

Images are sourced from personal photographs, shots of snowfields and mountain sides, textbooks, encyclopedias, and stock imagery, connecting personal experience to a collective geographic history. I work over the surface with pencils and pastels erasing the photographic quality beneath, and lending urgency to these emotionally charged images.

Luciana Abait
Abyss II, 2020
Mixed media on paper transferred onto outdoor fabric
100 x 100 inches

Biography
Luciana Abait was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She lives and works in Los Angeles. She is a resident artist of 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica. Abait’s work has been shown in galleries, museums, and international art fairs throughout the United States, Europe and Latin America. Some of these are: A Letter to the Future at Los Angeles International Airport, Flow, Blue at Rockford College Art Museum, Illinois and Sur Biennial in California. She has also completed numerous public art commissions. Abait’s works are held by private, public and corporate collectors from the United States, Europe, Latin America and East Asia.