Teresita Fernández (born 1968) is a

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-based visual artist best known for her public sculptures and unconventional use of materials. Her work is characterized by a reconsideration of landscape and issues of visibility. Fernández’s practice generates psychological topographies that prompt the subjective reshaping of spatial and historical awareness. Her experiential, large-scale works are often inspired by natural landscapes, investigating the historical, geological, and anthropological realms in flux. Her sculptures present optical illusions and evoke natural phenomena, land formations, and water. Throughout her career, Fernández has experimented with a diverse array of materials. Ranging from ceramics, glass, and charcoal to gold and graphite, the varied mediums prompt the viewers to take a closer look at each work to contemplate the materialities. To Fernández, materials—at times found subterraneously and are physical remnants of a place—are a testament to the historical past and tangible facts. Fernández refers to her works as “stacked landscapes,” alluding to the process of layering meanings and materials to her sculptural plane. In this process, Fernández’s landscape sculptures delve into complex themes of self-perception, colonialism, and historical violence associated with the environment and body. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2003), and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" (2005). In 2011, she served as a presidential appointee to

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

's U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, distinguishing her as the first Latina to serve in that role.

Early life and education

Fernández was born in

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

to Cuban parents in exile. Her family left Cuba in July 1959, six months after the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...

. As a child, she spent much of her time creating in the

atelier An atelier () is the private workshop or studio of a professional artist in the fine or decorative arts or an architect, where a principal master and a number of assistants, students, and apprentices can work together producing fine art or vi ...

of her great aunts and grandmother, all of whom had been trained as highly skilled couture

seamstress A dressmaker, also known as a seamstress, is a person who makes clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. Dressmakers were historically known as mantua-makers, and are also known as a modiste or fabrician. Notable d ...

es in

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

. In 1986, Fernández graduated from Southwest Miami High School. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from

Florida International University Florida International University (FIU) is a public research university with its main campus in Westchester, Florida, United States. Founded in 1965 by the Florida Legislature, the school opened to students in 1972. FIU is the third-largest univ ...

in 1990, and a Masters of Fine Art from

Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a Public university, public research university in Richmond, Virginia, United States. VCU was founded in 1838 as the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, becoming the Medical College of Virgin ...

in 1992.

Career

In 2009 the

Blanton Museum of Art The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (often referred to as the Blanton or the BMA) at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent co ...

at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

commissioned the large permanent work titled ''Stacked Waters'' that occupies the museum's Rapoport Atrium.
Stacked Waters
' consists of 3,100 square feet of custom-cast acrylic that covers the walls in a striped pattern. The work's title alludes to artist

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism.Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for ...

's "stacked" sculptures—a series of identical boxes installed vertically along wall surfaces—as well as to his sculptural explorations of box interiors. Fernández noticed how The Blanton's atrium functions like a box, and given its architectural nods to the arches of Roman baths and cisterns, she sought to fill its spatial volume with an illusion of water. Also in 2009, Fernández debuted the permanent, site-specific commission ''Blind Blue Landscape'' at th
Benesse Art Site
Naoshima. The work consists of a collection of glass cubes, illustrating a reflective landscape. This work is on view at the Benesse House hotel complex. The artist also debuted a similar commissioned work called
Starfield
', made up of mirrored glass cubes on anodized aluminum in the

AT&T Stadium AT&T Stadium is a retractable roof stadium in Arlington, Texas, United States. It serves as the home of the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL), and was completed on May 27, 2009. It is also the home of the Cotton Bowl Classic ...

in Arlington, Texas. In 2013, Fernández was featured in a contemporary art installation at

Cornell Fine Arts Museum The Rollins Museum of Art is located on the Winter Park campus of Rollins College and is the only teaching museum in the greater Orlando area. The museum houses more than 5,000 objects ranging from antiquity through contemporary eras, including ...

's Alfond Inn in

Winter Park, FL Winter Park is a city in Orange County, Florida, United States. The population was 29,795 according to the 2020 census. It is part of the Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. Winter Park was founded as a resort ...

. The work displayed was titled "Nocturnal (Cobalt Panorama)". In 2014, Fernández was the subject of a solo-exhibition with

Mass MoCA The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing ...

, ''Teresita Fernández: As Above So Below'', in conjunction with the museum's fifteenth-year celebration. In Mass MoCA's first floor gallery spaces, she exhibited her three new landscape-informed, large-scale installations: ''Black Sun'', ''Sfumato (Epic)'', and ''Lunar (Theatre)''. On June 1, 2015,
Fata Morgana
', her largest public art project to date and the largest installation in the park's history, opened in New York's

Madison Square Park Madison Square is a public square formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for Founding Father James Madison, the fourth president of the United St ...

. The Madison Square Park Conservancy presented the outdoor sculpture consisting of 500 running feet of golden, mirror-polished discs that create canopies above the pathways around the park's central Oval Lawn. ''Fata Morgana'' reflects the artist’s immersive sensibilities where the act of living and moving through spaces influence her practice. Seattle cloud cover 0468

In 2017, Fernández, in collaboration with

Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC) is a privately held Latin American art organization based in Venezuela and New York City founded by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and Gustavo Cisneros. History In the 1970s, during Patricia Phelps d ...

, created a site-specific installation called
OVERLOOK: Teresita Fernández confronts Frederic Church at Olana
' at

Olana State Historic Site Olana State Historic Site is a historic house museum and Landscape architecture, landscape in Greenport, Columbia County, New York, Greenport, New York, near the city of Hudson, New York, Hudson. The estate was home to Frederic Edwin Church (182 ...

. In this work, Fernández contests the traditional “American Landscape” painting tradition, combining portraits of indigenous people, expansive horizon lines, and botanical imagery to prioritize the individual within the landscape.

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Committee on the Arts commissioned ''Autumn (... Nothing Personal)'' a public art project by Fernández in 2018. The circular installation was placed in Tercentenary Theatre Harvard Yard, serving as a physical space for public dialogue and performance. In 2019, the

Pérez Art Museum Miami Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)—officially known as the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County—is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Maurice A. Ferré Park in Downtown Miami, Florida. Founded in 1984 as the Cent ...

and Phoenix Art Museum organized ''Teresita Fernández:'' ''Elemental'', the artist's first mid-career retrospective presenting artworks spanning the 1990s to the present. The exhibition featured sculptures, installations, and several other mixed media works to comment on social, geological, and political issues. The publication accompanying the show was published by PAMM with

Phoenix Art Museum The Phoenix Art Museum is the largest art museum, museum for visual art in the southwest United States. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,0 ...

. Also in 2019, Fernández was commissioned to create a permanent, site-specific glazed ceramic installation ''Viñales(Mayombe Mississippi)'' for the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA). ''Viñales(Mayombe Mississippi)'' is a 60-foot-long ceramic mural, placed on the exterior wall of the garden’s Pavilion. The installation draws inspiration from her previous ''Viñales'' series, which embodies Fernández’s interest in combining earthly materials with a conceptual approach to place and image-making. In 2021, Fernández exhibited "Dark Earth" in the Maria & Alberto de la Cruz Art Gallery at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

. The exhibit featured a panoramic wall made from charcoal and punctuated with reflective, golden panels. From 2021 to 2023, Fernández participated in

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

’s ''Teresita Fernández: Fire (United States of the Americas)'', unveiling her site-specific ''Fire (United States of the Americas)'', which inaugurated a new wing at the museum. An abstract map made up of charcoal, this installation featured all US states and territories, examining legacies of colonialism, indigenous genocide, and slavery. Also in 2021, Fernández produced a site-specific, permanent sculpture ''Paradise Parados'' as part of the

Brooklyn Academy of Music The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a multi-arts center in Brooklyn, New York City. It hosts progressive and avant-garde performances, with theater, dance, music, opera, film programming across multiple nearby venues. BAM was chartered in 18 ...

(BAM)/ Robert W. Wilson Public Art Initiative. The permanent sculpture was installed in the Robert W. Wilson Sculpture Terrace at BAM Strong, connected to its historic Harvey Theater. ''Paradise Parados'', consisting of 3,000 feet of perforated stainless steel, received the New York City Public Design Commission award for Excellence in Design. The installation echoes the surrounding urban life, presenting a dynamic rethinking of public space. Fernández has also participated in multiple group shows including ''Contemporary Optics'' at the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

(SFMoMA) in 2021 and ''Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s -Today'' at the

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in the Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary ...

(MCA) in 2022. In the Summer of 2024, SITE Santa Fe presented the exhibition ''Teresita Fernández / Robert Smithson'', which placed Fernández’s oeuvre in dialogue with acclaimed Minimalist

Robert Smithson Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and mu ...

’s. Together, the works explore the interstices between place, site, sight, and time through material intelligence, geological agency, and cartographic fiction. The exhibition included over 30 works by Fernández and marked the first time that Smithson’s work has been displayed in conversation with a contemporary living artist. Fernández is one of the 18 contemporary artists awarded a site-specific commission for the John F. Kennedy International Airport’s new Terminal 6, which is scheduled to open in 2026.

Advocacy for the arts

Fernández is well known for advocating for Latino artists and in 2016 she partnered with the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

to organize the U.S. Latinx Arts Futures Symposium, a landmark gathering of Latino artists with museum directors, curators, scholars, educators, demographers, and funders across the country. Partnering with the

in 2016, Fernández helped found and create the U.S. Latinx Arts Futures Symposium. The symposium was organized to create a dialogue on how to more broadly represent Latino art across the full spectrum of creative disciplines. In her opening address for the U.S. Latinx Arts Futures Symposium, Fernández indicated that the event was meant to create an intersection between "the powerful and the voiceless." One direct result of the U.S. Latinx Arts Futures Symposium was the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

hire of the museum's first

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

specializing in Latino art.

Awards

* 1994:

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Fellowship * 1995: Metro-Dade Cultural Consortium Grant (Miami, FL) * 1999: Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award * 2003:

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

(New York, NY) * 2005:

MacArthur Fellows Program The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

* 2013:

Aspen Art Museum Founded in 1979, the Aspen Art Museum (AAM) is a non-collecting contemporary art museum located in Aspen, Colorado, United States. AAM exhibitions include drawings, paintings, sculptures, multimedia installations and electronic media. Building ...

Aspen Award for Art (Aspen, CO) * 2016: Art in General Visionary Artist Honoree (New York, NY) * 2017: National Academician, National Academy Museum & School (New York, NY) * 2017: Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers (New York, NY) * 2017:

The Drawing Center The Drawing Center is a museum and a nonprofit exhibition space in Manhattan, New York City, that focuses on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary. History The Drawing Center was founded by former assistant curator of dr ...

40th Anniversary Honoree (New York, NY) * 2021: Meridian Cultural Diplomacy Award, Meridian International Center (Washington, D.C.) * 2021: Award For Excellence in Design, New York City Public Commission (New York, NY) * 2022:

Creative Capital Creative Capital is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in New York City that supports artists across the United States through funding, counsel, gatherings, and career development services. Since its founding in 1999, Creative Capital has co ...

Award (New York, NY)

Early life and education

Career

Advocacy for the arts

Awards

References

Further reading