Teresita Fernández
8 October–12 November 2005
Teresita Fernández in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, Fire, 2005. Woven dyed silk fiber, steel armature, epoxy. 96 x 132 inches (diameter). Photo: Aaron Igler.
Opening Reception and Lecture by the Artist
Friday, 7 October 2005
6:00–8:00 p.m.
Members-only Preview with the Artist
Friday, 7 October 2005
5:00 p.m.
A recently-named MacArthur Fellow, Teresita Fernández finds inspiration in nature and draws upon a wide range of materials to translate natural forces into essential elements of color and light, depth and space. Fernández is extremely sensitive and attentive to the inherent properties of materials. Through a regimen of experimentation, she achieves a striking balance between form and the resonant character of unorthodox, synthetic materials. Her ability to identify the inherent properties of these materials and manipulate them for a greater purpose, engages the viewer in a surprisingly minimal but evocative metaphor of natural form that immediately imbues her sculpture with a deliberate, carefully constructed tension between natural and artificial form.
As an Artist-in-Residence, Fernández worked with FWM staff to create Fire. This monumental, delicate sculpture is composed of two concentric circles of thousands of silk threads that hover, suspended in the gallery. The silk threads, hand-dyed shades of lush reds, oranges and yellows, come to life as one circles the piece. The two concentric layers of threads flicker under the gallery lights, losing their materiality and becoming animated as pure color and light.
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Fire was hand-dyed using an innovative technique of airbrush color dyeing. Photo: Aaron Igler |
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A truly collaborative effort and feat of technical innovation, Fernández worked with FWM Project Coordinator Mary Anne Friel, professional spray master Michael Wommack, weaver Pam Pawl, and sculptor Georghe Adam. Starting with the initial concept of a "ring of fire," the project went through many material incarnations. Crucial to the piece's development was a trip to the renowned textile manufacturer Scalamandré, until recently located in Queens, NY. The facility's long rows of stretched warp threads inspired Friel and Fernández to leave behind the weightiness of materials like resins and plastics. Finally, partially woven threads were stretched taut and suspended between two custom-made steel rings and hand-dyed using an innovative technique of airbrush color dyeing.
Also on view are recently completed wall pieces. The surfaces of these works conjure the varied qualities and incarnations of smoke. Using repetitive mark making with a ball point pen and other materials, passages in each work are by turn suffuse, choked, and ethereal.
An innovative marriage of materials and form, the artist's collaboration with FWM marks an ambitious use of new materials and experimentation with traditional dyeing process, but the conceptual premise of Fire remains in keeping with the artist's ongoing practice. Fernández has made works that evoke eruptions, waterfalls, sand, water, fire, grass, and sky. Rather than mere representations of these phenomena, Fernández creates material and structural equivalents—metaphors—often employing thousands of finite, synthetic objects to render the essence of natural phenomena. A mosaic of colored acrylic cubes stand in for fire, aluminum and acrylic beads create a sand dune, and fiberglass sheets become a waterfall. Fernández uses light to give life to these objects; as the viewer interacts with her sculpture, light triggers the active surfaces of the work. Fernández's cool, almost minimalist strategy may appear to distance the work from the immediacy of the phenomena she recreates. However, through her precise use of materials, and sensitivity to their reception by the viewer, Fernández pays near reverential respect to the human experience of natural phenomena.
Teresita Fernández working on Fire at FWM, 2005. Photo: Aaron Igler
About Teresita Fernández
Teresita Fernández, born in Miami, FL in 1968 to Cuban parents, resides and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA from Florida International University, Miami, FL in 1990 and her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA in 1992. Fernández has received numerous awards including Affiliated Fellowship at American Academy in Rome (1999), Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award (1999), ARCUS Project, Moriya, Japan (1997), National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, CAVA Fellowship (1995) and NEA Individual Artist's Grant, Visual Arts (1994). In 2001 she was a featured artist of the Public Art Fund, with Bamboo Cinema exhibited in New York City's Madison Square Garden. Museum exhibitions of her work have been held at Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Spain (2005), Grand Arts, Kansas City, MO (2003), Miami Art Museum, Miami, FL (2003), Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York (2003), Museum of Modern Art, New York (2001), SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM (2001), and Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA (1999), among others.
The Fabric Workshop and Museum is the only contemporary art museum in the
United States devoted to creating new work in fabric and other materials
in collaboration with emerging and established artists from around the world.
Founded in 1977, The Fabric Workshop and Museum has developed from an
ambitious experiment to a renowned institution with a widely recognized
residency program, an extensive collection of work by resident artists,
in-house and touring exhibitions, and comprehensive educational programming
that includes lectures, tours, in-school presentations, and student apprenticeships.
All FWM exhibitions and programs are free and open to the public.
Hours: Mon. - Fri. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat., 12 noon to 4 p.m.
The programs of The Fabric Workshop and Museum are supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts; The Judith Rothschild Foundation; Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency; National Endowment for the Arts; Miller-Plummer Foundation; LLWW Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; U. S. Institute of Museum and Library Services; Nimoy Foundation; The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission; Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro; Independence Foundation; PNC Foundation; The Philadelphia Cultural Fund; E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation; Claneil Foundation; Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation; Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation; The Henry Luce Foundation matching gifts program; The Barra Foundation; LEF Foundation; Louis N. Cassett Foundation; Quaker Chemical Foundation; and the Board of Directors and members of The Fabric Workshop and Museum.
For more information, please contact Alex Sadvari, Communications Coordinator, at 215-568-1111 ext. 15,
alex@fabricworkshopandmuseum.org.
For general information, call 215-568-1111.
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