TERESITA FERNANDEZ
 

Borrowed Landscape (Citron, Cerulean, Violet, Blue)

INTERVIEW

John LeKay: One of the first things that came to my mind when looking at your work entitled "Borrowed Landscape (Citron, Cerulean, Violet, Blue)" is this beautiful luminescent sense of the immaterial, and a kind of Post-Impressionistic sensitivity to light.  Even more so, Yuanye, the classical Chinese garden construction written by the late Ming Dynasty garden designer Li Jicheng  (he composition of a garden, a river, the ocean, fields, forests, large trees, or even a building).  Please tell me if you have an  interest in the Chinese or Japanese culture and how this has influenced your work?

Teresita Fernandez: I have been to Japan many times and did an artist residency there in 1998.  I was very much influenced by traditional Japanese garden techniques and the sense of the landscape being brought into the interior.  "Borrowed Landscape" refers to "Shakkei", where an outdoor image is composed of a live, real vista that has been cropped and manipulated to be seen from the darkened interior, especially in many of the temples I visited in Kyoto.  I was fascinated by how this optical effect created the illusion of a floating, projected image, almost like a film.

 

JL:  Your piece on the ring of fire also has a similar ethereality. I noticed that many of your compositions are in the shape of a circle. What inspired this piece and what is it about the circle that you find so interesting?

TF: Many of my works refer to specific features in the landscape or nature.  I am continuously challenged not by the idea of representing or re-creating say, fire or smoke or water, but rather how with sculptural three dimensional elements I can recreate the behavior or fleeting, subtle presence of these references.

JL: There are many pieces that seem to be very fluid in nature, with pliable materials and a Zen aestheticism. Please tell me about your choice of materials and where this derives from?

TF: My work starts first conceptually.  When I understand what I want something to do then I start to experiment with materials, often very low-tech or industrial.  I am not attached to certain materials per se, but I am drawn to those that transmit light and color in a luminous way.
 

 

Bamboo Cinema

JL:  In an outdoor maze piece entitled "Bamboo Cinema", you created an eight-foot tall plexi-glass "bamboo" labyrinth. This also has an oriental sensitivity; what inspired the making of this piece?

 

TF:  "Bamboo Cinema" was sited at Madison Square Park in NYC.  It functioned like an early cinematic device, where images appear to be moving when seen through the slots or spaces between the vertical poles.  I was interested in questioning the role of viewer not just as witness but also as performer, setting the piece into apparent motion.

JL: Please describe your creative process?  Do you make drawings, take photographs, write things down, etc.?

TF: .I read and write as I am developing an idea and I also do many drawings. I come up with multiple threads of ideas simultaneously.  Some ideas manifest themselves as objects, meaning I find the right way, the right vehicle to explore them. Sometimes it takes years to find the materials that create a desired effect. In this way my process is always in a state of development.

 

JL: Since winning the MacArthur Foundation Award, how has this impacted on your work and your creative process?

TF:  I have a bit more freedom time-wise and financially to experiment with other processes or materials.  I feel like the award offers me crucial studio time that is more about thinking than meeting deadlines or producing finished works.  This kind of time is so necessary for an artist's development.  I never stay in one place very long, and I am not interested in making signature pieces that look like "my work".  Along the way to the big, finished, resolved works that everyone sees are the awkward, nagging ideas that obsess you and keep the creative process volatile and important.

 

Courtesy www.lehmannmaupin.com