Michael Fernandes (artist)
{{Infobox artist
| name = Michael Fernandes
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| birth_date = 1944
| birth_place = Trinidad
| nationality = Canadian
| known_for = installation artist, performance artist, audio artist, artist who makes bookworks
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Michael Fernandes (born in 1944){{cite web |url=http://visualeyez2009.latitude53.org/artists/MichaelFernandes |title=Michael Fernandes | Visualeyez 2009 |accessdate=2010-03-11 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100503094435/http://visualeyez2009.latitude53.org/artists/MichaelFernandes |archivedate=2010-05-03 }} is a Canadian experimental artist and art educator based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His work uses familiar, even banal materials to ask the viewer to confront the boundary between daily life and art.{{cite web|last=Horne|first=Stephen|title=The Artistic Momentary: (Michael Fernandes at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia) 2004|url=http://www.stephenhorne.org/post/38495150376/the-artistic-momentary-michael-fernandes-at-the-art|work=Stephen Horne: writing on art|publisher=Stephen Horne|accessdate=6 October 2013|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20131006112736/http://www.stephenhorne.org/post/38495150376/the-artistic-momentary-michael-fernandes-at-the-art|archivedate=6 October 2013}}
Early life
Fernandes was born in Trinidad. He emigrated to Canada to study at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in the 1963.{{cite web |title=Michael Fernandes |url=https://www.youraga.ca/bio/michael-fernandes |website=www.youraga.ca |publisher=Art Gallery of Alberta |access-date=19 August 2022}}{{Cite book |last=Cronin |first=Ray |url=https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/halifax-art-and-artists/ |title=Halifax Art & Artists: An Illustrated History |publisher=Art Canada Institute |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-4871-0315-6 |location=Toronto}} By 1973, Fernandes moved to Halifax to teach at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.
Career
Initially a painter, Fernandes turned to installation and multimedia to create situations that actively solicit participation from the viewer. Fernandes' texts and interventions explore this intersection of private life with public space.{{cite web|title=Michael Fernandes|url=http://msvuart.ca/index.php?menid=07/03/02&mtyp=2&article_id=201|publisher=MSVU Art Gallery|accessdate=5 October 2013}}
{{quote box|quote = I want these works to continue to form after they are seen...Paintings seem to stay on the wall; my installation works are talking about a change that is active. You can go away and still work on it. |source =Michael Fernandes{{cite journal|last=Eyland|first=Cliff|title=Michael Fernandes|journal=Arts Atlantic|year=1991|volume=40|issue=Spring/Summer|pages=42–43|url=http://www.umanitoba.ca/schools/art/content/galleryoneoneone/fernan.html|accessdate=5 October 2013}}|width= 40%|align= right}}
Fluxus suggested that everyday life should not be excluded from art. It encouraged a direct approach to creating work using the minimum amount of means required. Fernandes extends this approach to use everyday objects and experiences to provoke the viewer to make connections between the installation/performance and the spaces of the viewer's own life. It deliberately leaves room for the viewer to find their own approach to understanding the work, which can be uncomfortable for some.
His approach has been compared to that of Jimmie Durham, David Medalla and David Hammons—all use wit and humour to illuminate attitudes and pre-conceptions based on ethnicity or race.
Fernandes has little interest in preserving objects for posterity or in meeting the viewer's expectations. He is more concerned with an 'ephemeral expressive situation'.{{cite journal|last=Shuebrook|first=Ron|title=Michael Fernandes at Eye Level Gallery, Halifax, October 24 - November 14|journal=Vanguard|date=March 1980|volume=9|issue=2|url=http://ccca.concordia.ca/c/writing/s/shuebrook/shue003t.html|accessdate=6 October 2013}} The challenge to the viewer is to return from Fernandes' work to experience the artistic moment in the viewer's own life.
He is an instructor in intermedia at NSCAD University.
Exhibitions
He has exhibited extensively nationally, notably at the Blackwood Gallery, Mercer Union, The Power Plant, and YYZ (Toronto, ON); C.I.A.C. (Montreal Biennale); Articule, and Mai, (Montreal, QB), Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina, SK); The National Gallery of Canada, and Saw Gallery (Ottawa, ON); Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Eye Level Gallery, and Mount Saint Vincent Art Gallery (Halifax, NS); and internationally at P.S.1 (New York, NY); Art Public Calaf (Barcelona, Spain); In The Context of Art Biennale (Warsaw, Poland).{{cite web|title=Michael Fernandes|url=http://www.truck.ca/artists/300|publisher=Truck Gallery|accessdate=6 October 2013}} His work was included in Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965-1980, the nationally touring exhibition.{{cite web|title=Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada c. 1965 to 1980 |url=http://www.utac.utoronto.ca/past-exhibitions/198-traffic-conceptual-art-in-canada-c-1965-to-1980 |publisher=University of Toronto Art Centre |accessdate=6 October 2013 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131219054501/http://www.utac.utoronto.ca/past-exhibitions/198-traffic-conceptual-art-in-canada-c-1965-to-1980 |archivedate=19 December 2013 }}
Awards
References
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Further reading
- Régimbal, Christopher, "Whose life are we talking about anyway? Michael Fernandes' One potato, two potato...it's your life...", Fuse Magazine, 2008, 31, 44-46.
- Cronin, Ray, "Who, who, who is Michael Fernandes?" C International Contemporary Art (28 July 2005)
- Horne, Stephen, "The Everyday Escapes," Third Text, winter 1997-98
- Horne, Stephen, "The Everyday Escapes," Abandon Building, 11 Press, Montreal 2007
- Michael Fernandes: Room of Fears and Fixing Room, MSVU Art Gallery [http://msvuart.ca/index.php?menid=02&mtyp=17&article_id=200&sby=2&sbyk=F&sbyn=79&pin=1], 18 March - 14 May 2006.
- Wark, Jayne and Peter Dykhuis, Michael Fernandes: Room of Fears, Art Gallery Mount Saint Vincent University (09/2006) 72 pp 23 ill. 5 x .5 in 1-894518-34-9 [https://web.archive.org/web/20071013034508/http://www.abcartbookscanada.com/fernandesm.html]
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Category:Canadian performance artists
Category:Academic staff of NSCAD University
Category:Canadian conceptual artists
Category:Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners