Teresa Murta’s hallucinatory fever dream of gestural abstraction is full of organic lines and undulating forms that made me feel like I was finding images in clouds that would begin to take a familiar form before disintegrating before my eyes. Is that a bouquet of Black penises? Do I see a duck? Is that a reclining figure?

To be held (2024) evokes the alienation of a Bacon painting with fleshy viscera, nearly congealing into a coherent figure against a blue background. Murta’s forms straddle the fence between figurative and abstract, keeping viewers guessing. This is the part of the show that I find most successful. Murta nails the spirit of abstraction, leaving space for the viewers’ contemplation without being shackled to recognizable representations.

Teresa Murta: To Meet on the Riverbend
Nicodim
1700 S. Santa Fe Ave., #431
Los Angeles, CA 90021
On view through April 19, 2025