Interstate: Luciana Abait

Interstate is a project that explores the artist’s geographical and transformational journey from Miami to Los Angeles. Through photographs of the landscapes and skyscapes taken from the East to the West, the works serve as a visual autobiography of both a personal and physical journey, tracing Abait’s journey over the last 23 years.

It begins with beautiful and idyllic Miami coastal waters followed by a tempestuous sky representing two devastating hurricanes and the subsequent move away from Miami. In the center, stormy skies represent various hardships encountered while adjusting to a new city.
As the images continue, landscapes begin to emerge from the clouds–representing the beginning of a new chapter in life. In this body of work, the process of transition is explored as both a metaphor and lived experience. Water exists as the central connector of both places – opening and closing the circle.

Artist Bio
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 immigration in particular.

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 exhibitions include On the Verge at Laband Art Gallery 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 feet mural commissioned by Miami- Dade Art in Public Places and “Hong Kong Windows”, commissioned by Swire Properties in Hong Kong.

Her recent public art projects have included 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 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.

Abait is the recipient of the 2016 Santa Monica Individual Artist Fellowship Award and the “Art Lives Here” Award by the Geffen Playhouse in 2022. Her work has been featured in The Art Newspaper, Los Angeles Times, Hyperallergic, Aesthetica, and Stir World among others.