A Journey Through Mesoamerican Color and Cosmology

On Friday, April 4, a group of Art Division students and staff visited LACMA for a private tour of We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art—an extraordinary exhibition that explores the power and poetry of color in the Indigenous Americas.
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Led by Assistant Curator Alyce de Carteret, who co-curated the show with Jackie Lopez, the tour offered a vivid and intimate look into how Mesoamerican artists used color to map time, space, and the cosmos itself. Alyce's passion and depth of knowledge brought the exhibition to life, guiding us through rooms bathed in five symbolic colors—white, black, red, blue, and yellow—each with shifting meanings shaped by context, materials, and ancestral knowledge.

Throughout the tour, students asked thoughtful questions about the pigments, iconography, and ceramic forms on display. Many were struck by how color in Mesoamerican art was not simply decorative, but cosmological—a generative force with the power to shape the universe.
It was a day of deep connection, reflection, and curiosity—an opportunity to engage with art not just as image, but as worldview.
​We are grateful to LACMA and to Alyce de Carteret for welcoming us into this beautiful and transformative space.