“An artist’s work is almost entirely inquiry based and self-regulated. It is a fragile process of teaching oneself to work alone and focusing on how to hone your quirky creative obsessions so that they eventually become so oddly specific that they can only be your own.”
Teresita Fernández
(b. Miami, FL, 1968)
Teresita Fernández is a Cuban American contemporary artist recognized for her mixed-media sculptural panels, large-scale public sculptures, and innovative use of materials that explore landscape and perception. Raised in Miami by parents who were exiled from Cuba, Fernández became intrigued by the complexities of her hometown’s landscape and social dynamics.
Through her art, she utilizes carefully researched and often unconventional materials like charcoal, gold, graphite, silk, glass, mirrors, onyx, and even ceramics to examine the interconnected relationships between people, places, and histories. Fernández’s landscapes create luminous and poetic representations of celestial bodies while also confronting the deep, often overlooked colonial violence that continues to influence our current perceptions of people and places. Her work is marked by interactive self-reflection and conceptual exploration, engaging viewers in a subtle unraveling of themes like place, visibility, and erasure. This approach prompts a more intimate experience for each individual viewer.
Fernández earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Florida International University, Miami, and Master of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond. Throughout her career, Fernández’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions globally, including at notable institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She has also had solo exhibitions at venues including the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin. Fernández has received multiple accolades, including the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and being named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2005. Additionally, she was appointed to the United States Commission of Fine Arts by President Barack Obama in 2011.
