Ana Teresa Fernandez
MFA awarded May 2006
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco

Artist’s Contact:

ragazza0007@yahoo.com

http://www.Anateresafernandez.com

Artist's Statement:

As a young girl in Mexico, I learned at an early age about the double standard imposed on women and their sexuality. “Los hombres quieren a una dama en la mesa, y a una puta en la cama,” (“Men want a lady at the table, and a whore in the bed”) is a statement I heard at 15, and it still lingers in my ears.

For contemporary women, it is often difficult to reconcile the ubiquitous images of whore and virgin in our culture: clean vs. dirty. It is a fine line that becomes the point of demarcation for women to dance around. I explore these territories that encompass different types of boundaries, psychological as well as physical, through performance-based paintings.

I first painted women dressed in tango attire performing cleaning activities or domestic chores within the home. As in Tango, the women duel their partner, the environment. I use the body as a device for exploration that pushes and pulls the space to its limits, activating it until one feels it pushing back.

I then transfer the private actions associated with domestic chores into public settings through my paintings. The dance becomes a battle and amalgamation between physical expectations, advertisement and predetermined gender notions versus instinctual desires and self-empowerment.

I exalt the outlines that define the confinement in the architectural space that try to divide expected behavior and self-expression. I blur the distinction of my subject’s identity: mother, wife, lover, housekeeper, sister or sexualized other. This in turn questions the viewer’s notion of intimacy with her and the symbolic socio-political stance that evaporates her identity.

My work in painting, performance and installation demonstrates how women identify their strengths and sensuality in performing labor in which there is no visible economic or social value, and most often is seen as dirty.

This intangible dilemma provoked me to do a performance at the San Diego/Tijuana Border, a place I myself had to cross to study and live in the US. In this performance, I used the multiplication of self and the never-ending task of cleaning the environment—sweeping the sand on the beach and vacuuming a dirt road—to accentuate the idea of disposable labor resource.

As in cleaning, the task itself must be done repetitively with no hopes of a promotion or escalating reward. The irony is used to mimic the ongoing social political conflicts that infiltrate people’s home through social osmosis.

Hierarchy and dominance is the product of exclusion by the physical walls that stand vertically dividing countries. They underscore the intersection of everyday tasks and fantasy from both sides of the political/gender divide. This in turn penetrates the private by the psychological walls that confine and divide genders in a domestic space.

Selected Exhibitions:

09/06: “3rd Annual National Juried Exhibition”; Art League of Northern California, Novato, Calif.: Finalist, awarded 2nd place by juror Francis McCormack;

07/06: “Nan Mitan-an”; First solo exhibition at Fondation d’Art Jacmel, Haiti;

07/06: “Cream from the Top”; Juried exhibition, Art Benicia Gallery, Benicia, Calif.;

05/06: “Vernissage”; San Francisco Art Institute MFA Show, Fort Mason, San Francisco;

05/06: “2nd City Council Gallery Juried Show”; Long Beach, Calif.; Juried by Alma Ruiz, curator of Museum of Contemporary Art/Los Angeles;

02/06: “(RE)Generation”; Galeria de la Raza, San Francisco

09/05: “Murphy and Cadogan Exhibition”; San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco

05/05: Spin Gallery, San Raphael, Calif.

About the San Francisco Art Institute:

At the San Francisco Art Institute, art is more than objects and processes; it is also a way of thinking, an approach to both knowledge and the world itself.

SFAI's degree programs further the relationship between the practices, histories and theories of contemporary art and culture. The School of Studio Practice consists of the institute's historical departments of Design+Technology, Film, New Genres, Painting, Photography, Printmaking and Sculpture. Offering BFA and MFA degrees and a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate, The School of Studio Practice is centered on the development of the artist's vision through studio-based experiments and the understanding that the work of the artist is an essential part of society.

The School of Interdisciplinary Studies, offers programs in History and Theory of Contemporary Art (BA, MA), Urban Studies (BA, MA) and Exhibition and Museum Studies (MA). Supporting the role of research and other forms of education, The School of Interdisciplinary Studies is based on the premise that critical reading, thinking, and writing—informed by an in-depth understanding of theory and practice—are essential for engaging and understanding contemporary art and global society. Also under this school's aegis are SFAI's four centers for interdisciplinary study: Art+Science; Public Practice; Word, Text, and Image; and Media Culture. Each center sponsors symposia, seminars, exhibitions, research fellowships, and residencies at SFAI during the academic year.

Together the two schools provide a more inclusive model to address issues relating to the evolution of contemporary art. SFAI's dean of academic afairs is world-renowned curator, critic,and writer Okwui Enwezor. Dean of graduate studies is the internationally prolific artist, filmmaker and writer Renée Green. The director of SFAI's Exhibitions and Museum Studies Program is independent critic and curator Hou Hanru.

SFAI has a rolling admissions policy and accepts applications year-round. For more information visit www.sfai.edu or call 1.800.345.7324 (outside US, call 415-771-7020).