Patricia Fernandez

Artist’s Statement

Applying an archeological approach to the family archive, my work questions the expectations of inherited history and the inaccuracy of memory. Through a complex network of forms and information I seek to investigate histories and literatures forgotten, misplaced or buried.

My work stems from a collection of letters titled A Series of Antecedents that are part real and part imagined. In these letters I am reconstructing a narrative that retells the events of a family history from 1936 to the present. I use this narrative to transmit a personal history that involves memory, omission and abstraction to build connections between people and places. As an installation, the sculptures and paintings are fragments of an experience, the ephemera of a subject’s identity formation. At the same time, the collected pieces act as a continuation and a product of the transmission of ideals and histories. Like the copier of the copier of the copier, ad infinitum, I reconstruct a new form, with the purpose to investigate the memories that are misremembered. Each element on its own, and also as a part of a larger ongoing collection, builds the narrative that serves as a recuperation of an unknown history.

Website: patriciafernandez.com

Biography

Select Group Exhibitions 2008-2011

2011
Question de Principe(s) /A Matter of Principle(s), Art Mur, Montreal, Canada

2010
Back To The Old House, Clifton Benevento, New York
Patricia Fernandez// Maha Saab, ltd los angeles, Los Angeles
Wet Paint 2, Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles
Select Community-Based Artwork

2011
CUE Art Foundation, Joan Mitchell Recipients, New York

2010
Greater Los Angeles Master of Fine Arts Exhibition, Long Beach State University, Calif.

Fellowships and Awards

2011
Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Emergency Grant for Project Completion, New York

2010
Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant, New York

2009
Jaques and Natasha Gelman Scholarship, Calif.

2008
Dean’s Grant, California Institute of the Arts, Calif.

EDUCATION

M.F.A., 2010
California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, Calif.

M.A., 2006
Pacific Oaks College, Pasadena, Calif.

B.F.A., 2002
University of California, Los Angeles

2000
Saint Martins School of Art and Design, London