Alfonso Nava Larios. Cosmic Tree (Guamuchil), 2023. Watercolor on amate, 23 5/8 x 15 ¾ inches (60 x 40 cm). Los Angeles County Museum of Art. © Alfonso Nava Larios, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA, by Javier Hinojosa.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s dazzling new exhibition Painted Worlds: Color and Culture in Mesoamerican Art explores how color and natural materials shaped Mesoamerican worldviews — and how those traditions continue to be expressed by artists today.
For the Indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica — a region comprising much of modern-day Mexico and Central America — color was a sacred medium bridging earthly and divine realms. “We live here only / In your book of paintings,” exalts a 16th-century Nahua poem featured in the exhibition, glorifying the creator who paints, sings, and colors humans into existence.
Painted Worlds features approximately 250 objects, including mural fragments from Teotihuacán, delicately woven textiles, and vibrant ceramics. Many of these works, including those from the Nelson-Atkins collection, are rarely seen or on view in Kansas City for the first time. Among them is the Codex Laud, an illustrated book of divination and one of only about 15 surviving books that predate Spanish colonization. Too fragile to handle in most contexts, the codex is made newly accessible through digital and tactile experiences.
Color-coded galleries map the Mesoamerican cosmos and move through the cycles of life and mortality: the white of the universe’s raw materials; the black and red of primordial knowledge; the blue-green and yellow of ecological abundance. Interactive displays decode the sophisticated science behind Mesoamerican pigments and demonstrate how artists sourced, prepared, and applied these colors using natural materials.
In Painted Worlds, past and present are a living spectrum. Contemporary works by Indigenous artists appear throughout the exhibition, in dialogue with their ancestral traditions. Together, these works are a vivid reclamation and celebration of 3,000 years of culture.
Painted Worlds: Color and Culture in Mesoamerican Art is organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibition is on view at the Nelson-Atkins through Feb. 8, 2026.
