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There has been much discussion about
the concept of the Border over the last year, with the polemics
of immigration becoming as hot and dangerous as the Sonoran
Desert.The portrayal of Mexicans
crossing to El Norte is almost always drawn collectively;
even the pro-immigration voices speak of hordes of people
as if the reality of any one person was significant only as
part of a moving population, the army of La Raza.
The cities of El Paso, Texas and
Ciudad Juarez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua form a metropolitan
area in two countries. Born on the American side, Fausto Fernandez
has dual citizenship, and is Mexican-American by birth. The
son of a maquiladora (assembly plant) manager, with
family on both sides of the border, he was able to move about
easily while growing up because of his legal status. Fernandez
spent the first twenty-five years as a resident of Mexico,
continuing his education through high school in Juarez at
the insistence of his family, who were concerned that his
language skills would deteriorate to Spanglish in American
schools.
With the thought that he might become
an architect, Fernandez studied graphic design and painting
at the University of Texas in El Paso. Painting quickly overtook
his interests, and without any clear notion of how he might
get by in the world, he crossed another border to become an
artist.
Fernandez prefers to think of his
current works, made of paper, tar, and acrylic paint, as paintings
of paper rather than collage. He uses blue prints, maps and
dress patterns as his backgrounds, with overlays of bold graphic
designs figuring the foreground. Though he claims that his
work is not symbolic, his work is imbued with a subtle politic.
Believing that social life is constrained by rules, Fernandez
uses patterns to investigate possible strategies to navigate
his private life.
"Fausto Fernandez's collage and
painted surfaces seem to turn inward into a self-reflective
space, exploring the complexities of personal intimate relationships.
The blue prints, sewing patterns, maps appear as guides to
a complex journey. One begins to understand, that for this
artist, life is a board game, complete with instructions and
rules of play. What is not clearly stated here is the possibility
that the game of life is not free. The rules are set."
-Joe Baker, Lloyd Kiva New Curator of Fine Art, Heard Museum
Until recently, finding works by Fernandez
was not easy unless one chanced on a piece at an out of the
way group show, or had an introduction to his studio in The
Lodge, an artspace on Grand Avenue that has been passed from
friend to friend over the last few years. The group shows
are now a bit larger. His work was chosen for inclusion in
the Arizona Biennial ‘07 at the Tucson Art Museum, and
this fall three of his paintings will be shown in Remix, a
group show that begins at the Heard Museum in October, and
travels to the Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian
in New York City the following May. The current show at The
Latin American Art Gallery is Fernandez’s first major
solo exhibition.
-JAVA, July-August '07
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