These canvases developed out of Hurtado’s exploration of how to paint light itself. She has described them as “moth lights,” explaining, “I always painted those squares of light hoping that an insect would come and try to get to it."

Audio Transcript

[Narrator]

Bill Viola was one of the first artists to use video art and sound technologies in his work, starting in the early ʼ70s. Here is Bill Viola talking about his work in 2010, recorded at ACMI in Melbourne

[Bill Viola] 

In this painting one can see the overlap of several major themes in Hurtado’s work: language-play, birth, and self-portraiture (the forms at the bottom of the canvas suggest the artist’s first-person perspective looking down at her own body).

Embedded in the composition of this painting are the words that inspired the title of this exhibition: “I Live I Die I Will Be Reborn.” The photograph below shows the painting’s cut strips of canvas before Hurtado sewed them together.

The corner installation of this work is based on archival photo documentation of Hurtado’s 1974 exhibition at the Woman’s Building in Los Angeles.

Orinoco, 1973
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth © Luchita Hurtado
Photo: Jeff McLane/Hauser & Wirth

Hurtado in the garden of her home on Mesa Road in Santa Monica Canyon, 1973

Photo by Matt Mullican