Ana Teresa Fernández facts for kids
Ana Teresa Fernández (born 1981) is a talented artist from Mexico. She creates amazing paintings and performances. She was born in Tampico, Tamaulipas, and now lives and works in San Francisco. When she was 11, her family moved to the United States. Ana Teresa studied art at the San Francisco Art Institute. She earned both her bachelor's and master's degrees there.
Fernández's art often explores important ideas. These include "psychological, physical and sociopolitical" themes. She also looks at "gender, race, and class" through her artwork. Her pieces are part of major art collections. These include the Nevada Museum of Art and the Denver Art Museum. Her work is also in the Cheech Marin Collection, the Kadist Institute, and the National Museum of Mexican Art.
Contents
Selected Works
Erasure
On September 26, 2014, a sad event happened in Iguala, Mexico. Forty-three college students were taken and sadly lost their lives. Even though Ana Teresa didn't know these students, she created an art piece about this tragedy. It was called Erasure.
This art project included paintings, sculptures, and text. It also featured a performance. In the performance, Ana Teresa painted an entire room black. Then, she painted herself black too. Only her bright green eyes could be seen. She wanted people to wonder, "Who were these 43 students?" She wanted to show the sadness of their absence.
Her paintings for Erasure showed body parts covered in black paint. This black paint symbolized the unfairness and cover-up of the event. The different body parts showed how the government was struggling. It also showed how they couldn't protect the people of Mexico.
Foreign Bodies
In her exhibit Foreign Bodies, Ana Teresa focused on women's rights. She once visited the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. A tour guide told her about a cenote. This is a beautiful sinkhole with blue water. The guide said it was a place where girls were sadly lost as offerings to ancient gods.
Later, archaeologists found proof that this story might be true. An article in National Geographic in 2003 talked about skeletons found there. These showed evidence of ancient ceremonies and human sacrifice.
Feeling moved by this, Ana Teresa went back to the cenote in 2012. This time, she rode a white horse named Tequila into the water. She wore high heels and a black dress. She wanted to show strength and change the sad history of that place. She aimed to "reclaim or change the history of that site."
Borrando la Frontera (Erasing the Border)
Borrando la Frontera means Erasing the Border. This is one of Ana Teresa Fernández's most famous performances. It's also very personal to her. She used sky blue paint to make a part of the Mexico-United States Border wall disappear. She wanted it to blend into the sky and ocean in San Diego.
This was the same border she crossed as a child with her family. She did this for the first time in 2011. She had learned about the struggles of people without proper documents. Ana Teresa wanted her art to show a "power of utopian vision." She wanted to add a "power symbol... of the violent control of Mexico."
She said that art can help people talk about important issues. It can be "open, honest, but also imaginative." Borrando la Frontera started small. But it grew when she was invited to continue the project in Nogales, Arizona.
Around 2003-2004, her mother took her to Friendship Park. This is where the U.S./Mexico border meets the Pacific Ocean. This visit inspired her to use the border in her art. Later, her parents even helped her with the third performance of Borrando La Frontera.
On April 9, 2016, Ana Teresa worked with her parents and Border/Arte. They performed Borrando La Frontera in three border locations. These were Agua Prieta, Juárez, and Mexicali. She said it was amazing to see so many people come together. Her parents even led the performance in Mexicali by themselves. She felt like they had a voice to "paint a different reality or truth." They used "paint and imagination as your weapon... no guns, no violence, just the community working together."
Her art also shows how Latin American women face challenges. But it still offers "hope."
Illustrations for Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things to Me
Ana Teresa Fernández also created drawings for Rebecca Solnit's famous book, Men Explain Things to Me. Rebecca Solnit asked Ana Teresa to include some of her art. One image was from a performance she did when SB 1070 was introduced in Arizona. This law led to racial profiling.
Ana Teresa explained that her art shows "the hiding of identity." But it also "reveals other truths" when someone tries to hide who they are. This connects to Solnit's book. The book talks about people who insist they know more than others.
Eco y Narciso I and II
In these artworks, Ana Teresa Fernández is shown mopping a wet floor. She uses only her hair to mop. She wears a black tango dress and high heels. You can see her shoulders and back working hard as she does this repeated task. She created these pieces in 2008.
Troka Troka
Troka Troka is about old trucks that immigrant workers have changed. These workers are like unrecognized business owners. They create an important part of city life by recycling. In the Bay Area, these drivers are building a new community that focuses on recycling.
Troka Troka made these old trucks into colorful public art. It showed how important the workers' labor is. It also highlighted a good partnership within the community. These trucks are like the colorful public transport vehicles in other countries. These include "Tap Taps" from Haiti and "Chivas" from Colombia. Ana Teresa described the jobs of working-class people as "so important in our community." She called them "the ecological flora and fauna of the city."
Of Bodies and Borders
In 2018, Ana Teresa Fernández had her third solo exhibition, Of Bodies and Borders. It included different types of art. There was an eight-minute video called Drawn below. There were also oil paintings from the video and drawings. A cement art piece was also part of it.
In the video, Ana Teresa is in the ocean. She wears her famous little black dress and heels. She is wrapped in a bedsheet and tries to float. She said the bedsheet was a symbol. It could mean "possible rebirth" for someone starting a journey. Or it could mean the sea taking lives.
Of Bodies and Borders represents migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea. This sea is considered a very dangerous border in the world. The exhibit talks about immigration and human loss. It also represents issues for women. The little black dress and heels show the difficulties women face for equality.
At The Edge of Distance
In July 2022, Ana Teresa Fernández had a solo show at the Catharine Clark Gallery. Her show, At The Edge of Distance, featured fifteen art pieces. Some were her well-known works. Her newest pieces included four paintings from video works. They showed a woman in black heels, covered in a blanket. She seems to be walking along the coast. Sometimes she is holding a clothesline.
These images refer to events at the Tijuana and San Diego border. They talk about immigration, a topic Ana Teresa often explores.
Four artworks used a special silver, shiny mylar blanket. These are like the blankets made by NASA. Ana Teresa said these blankets are meant to keep astronauts warm and safe in space. But instead, they are used to separate women and children in holding places at the Southern border. Even though the blanket is thin, it shows the heavy feeling of being separated from loved ones. This mylar blanket was also in The Space Between Us. This artwork shows two people covered in the blanket trying to kiss. This piece was shown at The Armory Show in New York City in 2022.
Solo Exhibitions
- 2021- On The Horizon, Ocean Beach, SF, CA
- 2019- Ana Teresa Fernández: Of Bodies and Borders, Grunwald Gallery, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
- 2018- Ana Teresa Fernández: Of Bodies and Borders, Gallery Wendi Norris Offsite, Miami, FL
- 2017- Dream, Public Art Installation, YBCA, San Francisco, CA
- 2016- Ana Teresa Fernández: Erasure, Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco, CA
- 2015- All or Nothing, First Street Gallery, Humboldt State University, Humboldt, CA
- 2014- Foreign Bodies, Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco, CA
- 2012- TROKA TROKA Public Art Project, San Francisco, CA
- 2011- Ablution, Electric Works, San Francisco, CA
Group Exhibitions
- 2021- Truth Farm, Intervention Exhibition in Trump Winery, Charlottesville, VA
- 2020- Die Verwandlung- Borders are Vacillating, Center for the Future, Prague, Czech Republic
- 2019- Counter-Landscapes: Performative Actions from the 1970s- Now, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ
- 2018- re: home, Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, CA
- 2017- UnDocumenta, Pacific Standard Time: LA>LA, Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, CA
- 2016- Ana Mendieta/ Threads of Influence, Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, AZ
- 2014- GalerÍa Sin Fronteras, National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago IL
- 2013- Small Paintings from the Cheech Marin Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA
- 2012- Power in Numbers, MACLA, San Jose, CA
- 2011- Chicanitas, Snite Museum, University of Notre Dame, IN
- 2010- 40th Anniversary Show, Galeria de la Raza, San Francisco, CA
- 2009- Lipstick, Praxis International Gallery, New York, NY
- 2008- Equilateral, Electric Works, San Francisco, CA
- 2007- Conduits of Labor, Queens Nails Annex, San Francisco, CA
Awards and Residencies
- 2020- ACLU Artist in Residence
- 2019- National Endowment for the Arts (with Creativity Explored)
- 2018- YBCA 100, for leaders building strong communities
- 2014- Eureka Fellowship Program, Fleishhacker Foundation
- 2013- De Young Museum Artist Studio Residency
