Luciana Abait: Fractured Geographies

January 30, 2025 - May 3, 2025

Sponsored by City of Bakersfield

The Exhibit

From ancient times to present day, art has been a tool for activism, reflecting societal struggles and inspiring change. Luciana Abait continues this legacy, addressing climate change, environmental fragility, and migration through her multimedia work. Rooted in her personal experience as an immigrant, Abait creates a visual language that transforms global crises into intimate, emotionally resonant moments. 

At the heart of the exhibition is Abait’s Road Trip series, inspired by travels through the American West. These works depict landscapes scarred by drought, wildfires, and environmental degradation, blending realism and imagination to evoke both beauty and loss. Her dreamlike imagery compels viewers to confront the consequences of climate change while acknowledging nature’s resilience. 

A key element of the exhibition is an immersive installation featuring imagery of bricks—symbols of division and displacement—representing the ongoing border crisis. Juxtaposed with natural elements, these works explore the tension between barriers and humanity’s innate need for connection, inviting reflection on the sacrifices and struggles of displaced individuals. 

Drawing inspiration from the romantic landscape tradition of the late 18th to mid- 19th centuries, Abait subverts idealized representations of nature to reveal the stark realities of human impact. By addressing environmental and humanitarian crises, her work highlights the interconnectedness of these challenges and calls for empathy, solidarity, and action. Through visually stunning, socially conscious work, Fractured Geographies offers a message of hope, urging us to reimagine a more compassionate and sustainable future. 

Artist Biography

Luciana Abait, artist
Photo by Vecc Schiafino

Luciana Abait was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and is currently based in Los Angeles where she is a resident artist of 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica. Her multimedia works deal with climate change and environmental fragility, and their impacts on immigrants in particular.

Abait is the recipient of the 2016 Santa Monica Individual Artist Fellowship Award, the 2022 “Art Lives Here” Award by the Geffen Playhouse, the 2023 Counter Image printing grant, and the 2024 L.L. Stewart Fellowship by the Oregon State University.

Abait’s artworks have been shown widely in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia in solo shows in galleries, museums, and international art fairs. Selected solo exhibitions include On the Verge at Hilliard Art Museum in Louisiana, Escape-Route at Laguna Art Museum, Luciana Abait: On the Verge at the Laband Art Gallery, Loyola Marymount University and A Letter to The Future at Los Angeles International Airport in California; Flow, Blue at Rockford College Art Museum and Luciana Abait at Jean Albano Gallery in Illinois; Nest at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania; and ARCO in Spain. She has completed numerous corporate and public art commissions, among them “Vistas,” a 24-foot mural commissioned by Miami-Dade Art in Public Places, and “Hong Kong Windows,” commissioned by Swire Properties in Hong Kong.

​Other public art projects include her being part of The Billboard Creative (where her artwork was displayed on a billboard in Hollywood), Projecting Possibilities, a video projection onto the street in Culver City, and LUMINEX in Los Angeles, where her 34-foot-high immersive video installation “Agua” was projected onto a historic cultural monument: the Petroleum Securities Building in Downtown Los Angeles.

Abait’s works and her focus on environmental activism have been featured in The Art Newspaper, Los Angeles Times, Hyperallergic, Aesthetica, and Stir World among others. This work has led to her invitation as a Guest Speaker at the Culture Summit 2024 in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Abait’s works are held in private, public, and corporate collections from the United States, Europe, Latin America, and East Asia. Among these collections are: The Related Group, Florida State University, Permanent Art Collection of Neiman Marcus, Miami-Dade Public Library System and Four Seasons in Florida; King and Spalding in Texas; Lehigh University Museum and West Collection in Pennsylvania; Sprint Corporation in Missouri; Flint Institute of Arts in Michigan; the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington D.C., and Freshfields and Swire Properties in Hong Kong.

Images

Events

Exhibition Tours  

Free with your BMoA Membership

Curatorial Tour | Saturday, February 8
Curatorial Tour | Saturday, March 8
Artist-led Tour | Friday, April 11

Artists on Artists

Saturday, April 12
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
$20 non-members | $10 senior/students | FREE to BMoA Members

Join artists Luciana Abait from Fractured Geographies and Kelly Berg from Illuminated Earth in Artists on Artists, as they engage in an intimate one-on-one discussion about their craft and work, providing insight into their creative process and how their work highlights the relationship between person and place.    

Image Credit: