The work in Rise and Fall expands upon this premise, using raw graphite and pencil to create luminous scenes. The mountainous horizon separating water and sky is a reference to island geography, such as that of Hong Kong. The articulation of the landscape in this series appears dipped in a metallic liquid, an effect of the unadulterated graphite used by Fernández that is reminiscent of artist Robert Smithson’s Pour works, whom Fernández has cited as reference. In those works, Smithson used viscous materials like glue or concrete to cascade over a landscape, treating the earth itself as a canvas. Rise and Fall can thus be read within this art historical context as both landscape painting and land art, an amplifying of the term “landscape” that Fernández continues to explore.

Teresita Fernández (b. 1968, Miami, FL; lives in Brooklyn, NY) received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and her BFA from Florida International University. She is a 2005 MacArthur Foundation fellow and the recipient of many prestigious awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts artist’s grant, an American Academy in Rome affiliated fellowship, and a Louis Comfort Tiffany biennial award. Appointed by President Obama, Fernández served from 2011-2014 on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a federal panel that advises the president, Congress, and governmental agencies on national matters of design and aesthetics. Fernández’s commissions include large site-specific installations at the Benesse Art Site, Naoshima, Japan; the Seattle Art Museum for the Olympic Sculpture Park; Madison Square Park, NY; Grace Farms Foundation in New Canaan, CT; and Louis Vuitton, Shanghai and Paris. Fernández’s works are included in many prominent collections and have been exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX; MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Spain; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.

For more information about Teresita Fernández or other Lehmann Maupin artists, please contact Marta de Movellan or Kathryn McKinney at +1 212 255 2923.