Teresita Fernandez

Teresita Fernández (born Miami, 1968) is a contemporary sculptor and artist based in Miami and New York. A receipient of the 2005 MacArthur Fellows Program "genius grant", Fernández's work is characterized by an interest in perception and the psychology of looking. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award in 1999. She is represented by the Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York City.

Career

Fernández received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Florida International University in 1990 and her Masters of Fine Art from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1992. She had a major solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami in 1995. Fernández's work is included in numerous major private collections as well as the permanent collections of the St. Louis Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, the Miami Art Museum, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Sammlung Goetz and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo.

In 2001 with sponsorship from Public Art Fund Teresita Fernández installed Bamboo Cinema in Madison Square Park. The installation was made up of 8 ft acrylic tubing that perforated the surroundings like a slow moving film strip [ [http://www.publicartfund.org/pafweb/projects/01/target/target_fernandez_01.html Public Art Fund: Target Art in the Park 2001: Teresita Fernandez ] ] . She is the youngest artist commissioned by the Seattle Art Museum for the recently opened Olympic Sculpture Park where her work "Seattle Cloud Cover" allows visitors to walk through a covered skyway while viewing the city's skyline through tiny holes in multicolored glass.

Works

Teresita Fernández's work has explored issues in contemporary art related to problems of perception and the fabrication of the natural world [Art in America, Nov. 2003] . Often her sculptures present spectacular optical illusions and evoke rainbows, sunlight, fire and water. For a 2002 solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin Gallery she made works which consisted of abstracted representations of natural phenomena such as a sweeping waterfall made from acrylic bands of white and blue and a parabolic sand dune covered in glass beads representing the shimmering effect of light on sand [ [http://www.grandarts.com/exhibits/TFernandez.html Grand Arts: Teresita Fernández ] ] . In 2005 she exhibited the "Ring of Fire", a piece created during her residency at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia and constructed from thousands of silk threads from Scalamandre [ [http://www.fabricworkshop.org/exhibitions/fernandez.php Fabric Workshop and Museum : Past Exhibition : Teresita Fernández ] ] . The threads were held taught between two rings and suspended from the ceiling, creating a unique optical illusion of transparency and dense color. In 2007 Fernández had her first gallery exhibition since being awarded the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2005. The exhibition, also at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, focused on the artist's interest in opacity, transperancy and the psychology of looking [Lehmann Maupin Gallery] . Fernández employed mirrors throughout the exhibition, with specific reference to an 18th century painter's tool containing a lusturous black mirror used to view tonalities in the landscape.

References

1. http://www.publicartfund.org/pafweb/projects/01/target/target_fernandez_01.html

2. Harper, Paula. "Teresita Fernandez at Miami Art Museum" Art in America, November 2003.

3. http://www.grandarts.com/exhibits/TFernandez.html

4. http://www.fabricworkshop.org/exhibitions/fernandez.php

5. http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/Fernandez

External links

* [http://www.lehmannmaupin.com Lehmann Maupin Gallery]
* [http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/eMuseum/code/emuseum.asp?style=browse&currentrecord=1&page=search&profile=objects&searchdesc=fernandez&quicksearch=fernandez&newvalues=1&newstyle=single&newcurrentrecord=1 Seattle Art Museum]