What is that color at the Particle Horizon, at the furthest point that we can see? Between Heaven and Earth? …I started by pouring pigments on the earth, and from that to a sculptural space, the earth as a sculpture moving in space. – Lita Albuquerque
Lita Alburquerque’s practice sprang from the Light & Space and Land Art movements in California in the 1970s, and her work has taken the form of performance, site-specific installations, video installations, poetry, and painting, investigating the cosmos through elemental materials. Her ephemeral works are staged outdoors and activate the landscape, like the 1978 Rock and Pigment, situated in the Mojave Desert where she used rocks marked with bright pigment to replicate the alignment of the stars in the sky. A Shared Rendezvous at The Stroke of Midnight comes from a series of paintings that is another example of the artist merging celestial bodies with earth from our own planet. Naturally derived pigments are layered over black or white painted canvases, allowing the intense color to build into an aura that stands out as the background for the ethereal gold discs that recall suns, moons, and stars. The pigment in these works directly ties to her installation and land art pieces from the 1970s and 80s, several examples of which are on view at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Groundswell: Women of Land Art, including a more recent installation work featuring the same deep blue. Albuquerque has recently experienced a resurgence in international exhibitions, including major installations for Desert X AlUla and Copenhagen Contemporary, and her solo exhibition, Liquid Light, part of the 59th Venice Biennale.
