Untitled, 1971

Oil and graphite on paper
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser © Luchita Hurtado
Photo: Jeff McLane/Hauser & Wirth

In this “sky skin” painting, Hurtado composed the shape of the sky to resemble a stretched animal skin. The palette of Mascara and related canvases were no doubt informed by the sky and landscape colors of her surroundings; she documented several of her paintings against the backdrop of Taos, New Mexico, where one can see the same combination of blue skies and earth tones as in the canvases themselves.

Untitled, 2018

Acrylic on canvas
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth © Luchita Hurtado
Photo: Jeff McLane/Hauser & Wirth

The Umbilical Cord of the Earth is the Moon, 1977

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

This exhibition was organized by the Serpentine Galleries (London), in association with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Generous support is provided by Elizabeth, Matthew, and Theodore Karatz and their families in honor of their mother, Janet Dreisen Rappaport. In-kind support is provided by Hauser & Wirth.

Nara produced this painting in June 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The artist considers this work a “study” in search of a new artistic stylistic direction. The patchwork of color on the hair and clothes, as well the peach hue beneath the surface of the skin, reflect an unfinished quality akin to French modernist landscape painting. The blended colors that emanate from underneath her glassy eyes are also a departure from the linear U-shaped marks in the eyes that reflect fire and other objects in previous paintings.

Nara uses his signature “bandage” technique, which he began in the mid-1990s, where he builds the surface up with strips of cotton to create a textured background, which is mounted on FRP board. A girl with pointy bangs and green eyes is submerged so far underwater that only her eyes, nose, and forehead are visible. The rounded structure of the dish-shaped canvas adds to the illusion of depth—as if one is witnessing the drowning of a figure who seems to be in a simultaneous condition of anger and passivity.

While confronting the 2011 nuclear disaster, Nara made Miss Spring (2012), a portrait of a wide-eyed girl with a high forehead who stands against a cherry-blossom pink background and stares straight at the viewer, with prism-like teardrops glistening in her eyes. A symbol of hope, this portrait served as the cover image for Ryūichi Sakamoto’s No Nukes 2012: Guidebook for Our Future. Miss Spring was used as a powerful backdrop banner by the protest organizers during the demonstrations.