On September 12th, College of Architecture + The Arts alumna Teresita Fernández saw the opening of her solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin’s Hong Kong gallery. This is the first solo exhibition of Fernández in China.
Fernández is known for using seemingly raw materials, such as glass, metal, and graphite, to create her pieces. In her work, Fernández frequently emphasizes nature, the idea of perception, and the psychology of ‘looking’. One of her pieces in the Hong Kong exhibition, called Golden (Panorama), is a triptych more than eleven-feet wide made of gold-chromed panels. She added Indian ink to the panels, and then removed some of the ink. The result is what looks like a landscape on the triptych. However, viewers cannot observe the piece without seeing their own blurred reflection in the panels. “What one person sees in a landscape painting is different from what I see, or from what the next person sees,” said Fernández. “Landscape is a very abstract idea, which we individually create….[In Golden,] somebody from China might see Huangshan, while someone from Massachusetts might see the Berkshire mountains or the Rockies. My work then becomes a mirror of what each of us knows.”
Born in Miami, Fernández graduated from CARTA with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and from Virginia Commonwealth University with a MFA. She has received the 2005 MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award, an American Academy in Rome Affiliated Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Artist’s Grant. In 2011, Present Obama appointed Fernández to serve on the US Commission of Fine Arts. Her work is featured at Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park, the United States Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., and the Bennesee Art Site in Naoshima, Japan. Fernández currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Teresita Fernández’s solo exhibition will run until Saturday, November 9, at Lehmann Maupin’s Hong Kong gallery, 12 Pedder Street, Central, Hong Kong. Free and open to the public. For more information, visit Lehmann Maupin on the web.
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