ART CITIES: London-Teresita Fernández

Teresita Fernández’s work is characterized by an expansive rethinking of what constitutes landscape: from the subterranean to the cosmic, from national borders, to the more elusive psychic landscapes we carry within. Fernández unravels the intimacies between matter, human beings, and locations, and her luminous work poetically challenges ideas about land and landscape by exposing the history of colonization and the inherent violence embedded in how we imagine and define place, and, by extension, one another.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Lehmann Maupin Gallery Archive

Featuring a series of glazed ceramic pieces and new sculptural paper panels, the exhibition “Astral Sea” extends Teresita Fernández’s interests in the confluence points of the cosmos, land, and water, as seen through the lens of an embodied sculptural landscape. Throughout her practice, Fernández has concerned herself with the ambulatory viewer, situating her work so that it is brought to life by the individual’s movement around the gallery. With these shifting vantage points, people’s reflections move across the surfaces of the work; depending on one’s location, the artist’s materials either reveal or conceal themselves from view. This physical engagement is akin to how we way find in or navigate the world around us, making evident our connectivity to the universe—the stars, tides, and slow time of geology. This continuous, flowing movement is the starting point for “Astral Sea”, a phrase that Fernández feels speaks to the ephemerality of both the sky and water. Visible from the gallery’s windows are two new glazed ceramic works: “Astral Sea 1” and “Astral Sea 2”, made from thousands of tiny glazed ceramic tesserae, with imagery that is at once deeply familiar yet ambiguous. The saturated blues suggest a flowing river connecting the two panels, earthen copper/brown hints at land masses, and deep greens become blooming organic matter. At the same time, these works could depict a galaxy, creating an “as above, so below” vertiginous topography that refuses to ground the viewer in a single recognizable location. The ceramic pieces are placed in the path of the sun, causing shifting light to add dynamism to the glossy surface of the tiles. As the viewer approaches the works, their silhouettes move across the variegated surface, activating the shimmering minerality of the glazes. Another reference point for the exhibition is the phrase “Stella Maris”, which translates to “star of the sea” and speaks to the feminine qualities universally associated with water. This “star of the sea” is evident in a series of new sculptural paper panels titled “Stella Maris (Net)”. While the glazed ceramic panels open onto vast worlds, these sculptural paper panels conceal something, creating liminal spaces between what can and cannot be known. Created through an accumulation of paper pulp and pigments, each work becomes a palimpsest where multiple layers are hidden from view, like invisible geologies. Networks of airy white lines and points (possible stars, galaxies, or wave breaks) unfold atop blue-gray grounds, and upon close inspection, the ink seeps into the crevices of the paper, turning the works into physical, sculptural objects. Atop the paper are handwoven nets made from Kozo fibers, which are tethered to fixed points, draping over the surface to create veils obscuring sections of the imagery below. The patterns in the paper and the weave of the nets intersect, prompting the viewers’ eyes to remain in motion. This active looking reinforces the fact that nothing is simultaneously accessible. The viewer’s eye is kept in perpetual motion as the works slowly unravel rather than immediately reveal themselves. The net motif reappears in the freestanding sculpture “Tether (Flotsam and Jetsam)” which anchors the exhibition, grounding the ephemerality of the accompanying works. A concrete geometric form sits on the floor, recalling a monumental and faceted dark gray gemstone. The surface exposes fragments of white sand that have been cast into the dark concrete, suggesting infinite constellations. The base of the sculpture is tilted to reveal that it is not entirely resting on the floor, but rather being pulled upward towards the ceiling by a directional rope. On the opposite end of the rope are suspended nets that seemingly hover, yet remain tethered. The base functions like a mooring anchor, while the nets’ buoyancy allows them to float up to the surface of an imagined water line. Additionally, the nets are laden with rock-like crystalline minerals, including azurite and malachite. Glistening like suspended points of light, these elements unify the bodies of work across the exhibition.

Photo: Teresita Fernández, Stella Maris(Net) 2, 2024, Handmade paper with UV-cured acrylic ink and handwoven fibers, 53 x 90.5 x 2.75 inches (framed dimensions), 134.62 x 229.87 x 134.62 x 6.98 cm, Photo by Daniel Kukla, © Teresita Fernández, Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery

Info: Lehmann Maupin Gallery, No.9 Cork Street, Mayfair, London, United Kingdom, Duration: 5-21/9/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.lehmannmaupin.com/