Internationally renowned multidisciplinary artist and writer Lita Albuquerque was born in Santa Monica, California and spent her formative years in Tunisia and France, returning to the United States in her teens. Albuquerque's early exposure to diverse cultures and landscapes profoundly influenced her artistic vision, which often explores themes of light, space, and the human connection to the cosmos.
Albuquerque emerged as a significant figure in the Light and Space movement in the 1970s, a group of artists based in Southern California who focused on perceptual phenomena and the experience of light and color. Her early works were characterized by large-scale outdoor installations that utilized natural materials like pigment, sand, and stones. One of her most notable early projects, Solar Grid, created for the 1978 Art and Technology exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, involved arranging pigment on the desert floor in a grid pattern, emphasizing the relationship between the earth and the celestial.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Albuquerque continued to develop her visual language, often incorporating scientific and astronomical concepts. Her Stellar Axis project, created in 1996, is a prime example of this fusion. For this piece, she placed 99 blue spheres in the Antarctic landscape, aligning them with the stars above. This work aimed to create a physical manifestation of the stars on Earth, linking terrestrial and celestial realms in a strikingly visual manner, and was the first and largest ephemeral artwork created on that continent. Albuquerque's contributions to art extend beyond her own creations; she has also been a dedicated educator. Among her many teaching appointments, she taught at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena for over three decades, influencing a new generation of artists with her interdisciplinary approach and emphasis on the integration of art and science.
In addition to her large-scale installations and educational endeavors, Albuquerque has also worked in public art. Her projects often seek to enhance and transform public spaces, inviting viewers to contemplate their relationship to their surroundings. Notable public works include Golden State, a large-scale sculpture installed at the California Science Center, and Spine of the Earth 2012, a land art performance that recreated her original 1980 installation with the participation of hundreds of volunteers.
Albuquerque's work has been recognized with numerous awards and honors, including three NEA Art in Public Places awards, an NEA Individual Fellowship grant, a fellowship from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the 2019 Laguna Art Museum Wendt Artist of the Year Award, and MOCA’s Distinguished Women in the Arts award. Throughout her career, she has exhibited internationally, with solo shows at prestigious institutions such as the Santa Monica Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Laguna Art Museum, and her work is included in numerous public and private collections such as the Getty Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the National Gallery of Art. Her innovative use of materials and her ability to convey complex scientific ideas through visual art have solidified her reputation as a pioneering artist whose work continues to evolve and push boundaries.
