Athena LaTocha: The Past Never Sleeps

In this installation of monumental works on paper, Athena LaTocha invites viewers to meditate on the landscape as a geographic space, a repository of history, and a personified living entity. Her works often incorporate materials and elements taken from sites referenced in their titles. These sites are layered with history that underpins their vibrant and visceral presence. Driven by LaTocha’s deep love of nature and the land, the artist explores the relationship between landscapes and the human histories that were made there. The three works presented in this exhibition reference the landscapes of Louisiana and New York. In extracting materials from each site for use in the paintings, LaTocha draws attention to the physical and cultural scars that are incised into the earth through industry, habitation, and traumatic events that underscore the ongoing unrest within the social and political landscape. This installation is curated by Valerie Cassel Oliver, VMFA’s Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

March 18, 2023 through March 10, 2024