Bringing a playful analog sensibility to the digital landscape of Times Square every midnight in February, artist Nora Maité Nieves invites audiences on a journey through the symbols, textures and ornamental elements of her Caribbean roots. Part origin story, part fantasy, Eyes of the Sea is a mythological genesis tale told through color, shape, and movement.

Conjuring concrete breeze blocks, bright yellow squares with eye-shaped contours stack and multiply while swirling spirals of color flow like lava beneath them. The eyes begin to dance, transforming into fish swimming through rich blue waters and past landscapes of richly-painted marble, mosaics, and grids. After seeming to climb onto land and across a colonial tile floor, at the culmination of their voyage, the transmorphic fish converge, taking the shape of a rainbow-hued spinning flower.

“The blocks become eyes looking through a portal to the Caribbean sea, a way for me to look back at my home, Puerto Rico, and for home to look back at me.”
— Nora Maité Nieves

Using stop-motion animation to bring her painted and sculptural works to life, Nieves turns a thoughtful gaze on the textures of and devotion to a single, dynamic place, exploring themes of identity and belonging as well as the history of the Caribbean.

Eyes of the Sea is presented in collaboration with the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, in conjunction with Nieves’ solo exhibition Clouds in the Expanded Field, on view from December 23, 2023 to July 7, 2024.

Multimedia Artist: Dan Scofield