œTelAranaTelAranaTela, Ana Teresa Fernandez

SOLO EXHIBITION, ANA TERESA FERNANDEZ

TelAranaTelAranaTelA
(Fabric, spider, spiderweb, lash out)

2007 HEADLANDS CENTER FOR THE ARTS

TOURNESOL AWARD EXHIBITION

performance in collaboration with dancer/choreographer JACINTA VLACH

Fernandez™ work is often based on documentation of both her own performances as well as the work of others. Untitled #1 depicts a woman hanging a sheet, based on a performance Fernandez did in the the Mission District in 2007, while Untitled #2 is a large scale oil on canvas, 72 x 100, that documents Jennifer Locke’s riveting work performed in 2007 at Artists Television Access when she dripped glue over her body.

Critic Yasmine Van Pee writes, (if this is used, please quote Van Pee) œ¦. Fernandez™ works literally embody the arduous, sisyphean tasks of her performances¦.

œ¦The in-your-face sexuality of her hyper-femme stage persona, a theatrical stilettoed
amazon straddling iron boards or writhing wet-haired across the floor, is not only a smart comment on the very particular but unspoken type of masculinity that characterizes much conceptual photography and performance documentation of the late 1960s and 1970s (think of those iconic images of a brooding Smithson in tight black jeans), it also points to the necessity of confronting an increasingly anodyne
media culture¦
 It’s commonplace by now to remark that our self-image is caught up in a circuitry of commodified desires, powered and sustained by an incessant stream of pleasurable images: Every cigarette, every drink, every love affair echoes down a never-ending passageway of references to advertisements, to television shows, to movies to the point where we no longer know if we mimic or are
mimicked, critic Thomas Lawson once remarked.
Things too real to deal with become digestible fantasy. Fernandez’s paintings heighten the awkwardness of the real, often to the level of
discomfort¦
– Yasmine Van Pee 2008

Fernandez attended the San Francisco Art Institute, earning an MFA in 2006 and a BFA in 2004. Two paintings made during the Tournesol Residency will
be featured in Bay Area Now 5 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in July 2008. She has recently shown in Conduits of Labor at Queen’s Nails Annex in 2008,
and had a solo exhibition at Braunstein/Quay Gallery in 2007. She has exhibited at Galeria de la Raza in SF, the Fondation d’Art Jacmel, Haiti; Nuestras
Hijas de Regreso a Casa, Juarez, Mexico; Arts Benicia Gallery, Benicia, CA.

Fernandez is a 2007-08 receipient of grant from the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) as well as the San Francisco Art Commission’s Cultural Equity Individual Artist Grants. She received a 2006 Neighborhood Public
Art Grant from the Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA; and a Jack and Gertrude Murphy Fellowship from
the San Francisco Foundation in 2005.

Headlands Center for the Arts is a non profit organization annually offering residencies to approximately 40 local, national and international artists. They support artists in the exploration of their work and serve as a laboratory whose focus is on artist™s process of investigation and creation by providing an unparralled environment for the creative process and development of new work and ideas. The Headlands offers opportunities for reflection, dialogue and exchange that build
understanding and appreciation for the role of art in society.
www.headlands.org

The Tournesol Award is sponsored by the Headlands, and was established by an anonymous donor to recognize one emerging artist each yea whose primary medium is painting. The goal is to provide the artist with the financial and community support to assist their artistic development in the critical years after school. The award includes a cash stipend, a one year residency at the Headlands and a solo exhibition at a Bay Area venue.

the luggage store is a non profit multidisciplinary arts organization esablished in 1987, with three venues in downtown San Francisco: the luggage store gallery at 1007 Market Street, the luggage store annex (aka 509 Cultural Center) at 509 Ellis Street
and Cohen Alley (a green community commons“also known as the Tenderloin National Forest“ for public art and social interventions). The luggage store™s vital exhibition, performing arts, public arts and arts education programs are decided to broadening aesthetic networks by encouraging the flow of images and ideas between different cultural and economic
communities.