Teresita Fernández

Teresita Fernández is a conceptual artist renowned for her public sculptures and innovative utilization of materials. 

Biography of Teresita Fernández

Born in 1968 in Miami, Florida, USA, Teresita Fernández currently resides in New York.

In 1986, Teresita Fernández completed her high school education at Southwest Miami High School. Subsequently, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Florida International University in 1990, followed by a Master of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1992.

Teresita Fernández's illustrious career encompasses a rich tapestry of achievements. Her artworks grace renowned collections and have been featured in numerous national and international exhibitions at prestigious venues such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minnesota, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., Castello di Rivoli in Turin, Italy, and Centro de Arte Contemporaneo in Spain.

Fernández's artistic contributions have earned her a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and a plethora of other accolades, including the Creative Capital Award, Meridian Cultural Diplomacy Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award, American Academy of Rome Fellowship (AFAAR), and a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist’s Grant in Visual Arts.

A significant milestone in her career was her appointment as a presidential nominee to Barack Obama's U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, where she earned the distinction of becoming the first Latina to serve in this esteemed role.

Teresita Fernández's Art Style

Teresita Fernández's artistic approach is characterized by her unconventional use of materials. One of her notable works, "Night Writing," features unique pulp pieces with patterns resembling Braille, creating a sense of constellations within the composition. By placing a mirror behind the layer of cast paper, Fernández captures the viewer's movements, reflecting atmospheric colors and light.

At Lehmann Maupin's "Caribbean Cosmos" exhibition, Teresita Fernández presented a multifaceted exploration of the Caribbean region, featuring a charcoal sculpture, a striking glazed ceramic panel, and a series of seascape dissolves captured on copper.

In her work, Fernández harnessed the raw power of earthly elements, employing fired clay, etched and polished copper, and solid charcoal derived from burnt trees. 

One of the artworks in this collection, "Pendent (Lynched Land)" (2022), portrays a battered palm frond ominously suspended from a hemp rope. Crafted from textured charcoal, a material derived from burned trees, this somber wall sculpture draws our attention to the extraction processes involved in our interaction with the landscape. It also alludes to the historical and political violence associated with resource extraction and global commerce, emphasized by the act of burning.