Mar Figueroa

Nazarian / Curcio is pleased to present The Witching Hour, a solo exhibition of new work by artist Mar Figueroa. Bringing together five works, including paintings incorporating handmade ceramic elements, the exhibition explores the relationship between the natural and spiritual worlds, drawing on the artist’s upbringing in an Ecuadorian Montubio community and the rituals, materials, and forms of knowledge that have shaped her understanding of the world.

Figueroa developed an understanding of the world through agricultural practices, herbal medicine, domestic rituals, and Andean Catholic devotion. In these traditions, the material and spiritual are closely intertwined: plants can heal, objects can protect, and everyday gestures can carry meaning beyond their immediate function. This understanding informs Figueroa’s approach to painting and object-making, where images and materials become ways of engaging with forces that exist beyond ordinary perception.

Rendered in a palette of deep blues, Figueroa’s paintings evoke the altered rhythms of the natural world after dark. Stylized flowers, curling stems, and other organic forms emerge against the natural texture of linen, shifting between botanical observation and imaginative abstraction. Drawing on her childhood unease with darkness, which has gradually given way to curiosity and attraction, Figueroa approaches the night as a space of uncertainty and possibility. The darkness is not simply something to fear, but an invitation to encounter the world differently, becoming attentive to forms of life and experience that remain hidden from view.

The title The Witching Hour refers to the longstanding association of night with fear, uncertainty, and unseen forces. For Figueroa, however, darkness has become less a source of unease than an invitation to look more closely, opening onto a world of transformation, spiritual possibility, and life unfolding beyond our immediate perception.

In two of the works, handmade ceramic elements extend the paintings into three-dimensional space. In Amulets Against Unfriendly Tongues, a painted blue hand is adorned with small clay faces, creatures, and flowers, each stitched with red thread. Drawing on traditions of protective amulets and the use of red thread against mal de ojo, or the evil eye, the work transforms anxiety into an object of care and protection. Santuario de la Mariposa takes the form of a small shrine, with a ceramic butterfly spirit sheltered above a painted image of metamorphosis. The work creates a space for contemplation, presenting transformation as a process of rest, renewal, and return.

Across The Witching Hour, Figueroa approaches painting and object-making as forms of contemplation and encounter. The nocturnal world becomes a way to consider the limits of human perception and the possibility of becoming more receptive to lives and rhythms beyond our own. Through the interplay of painted image, sculptural form, and ritual association, Figueroa explores how the natural and spiritual worlds intersect, revealing a world in which transformation and forms of connection extend beyond what we can see or fully understand.

Mar Figueroa is an Ecuadorian-born artist who holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the Yale School of Art. She has presented work at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and Sotheby’s Institute of Art, and is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, a National Arts Club Fellowship, and the Mahler & LeWitt Studios Award. She was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.