Brendan Fernandes

Encomium I, II, and III - 2011 Performance, poster multiples, 16” x 20” Plexiglas plinths, 16” x 24” x 40” each HD Video, floor vinyl

 

Encomium I, II, and III - 2011 Performance, poster multiples, 16” x 20” Plexiglas plinths, 16” x 24” x 40” each HD Video, floor vinyl

 

Encomium I, II, and III - 2011 Performance, poster multiples, 16” x 20” Plexiglas plinths, 16” x 24” x 40” each HD Video, floor vinyl

 

Encomium I, II, and III - 2011 Installation view @ Diaz Contemporary, 2011

 

Encomium I, II, and III - 2011 Installation view @ Diaz Contemporary, 2011

 

Encomium I, II, and III - 2011 Installation view @ Diaz Contemporary, 2011

 

Encomium I - 2011 Poster multiple, 16” x 20” Plexiglas plinth, 16” x 24” x 40”

 

Encomium II - 2011 Poster multiple, 16” x 20” Plexiglas plinth, 16” x 24” x 40”	Encomium II - 2011 Poster multiple, 16” x 20” Plexiglas plinth, 16” x 24” x 40”

 

Philia - 2011 Neon, plexiglas 48” x 18” x 5” Edition of 3

 

Symposium I, II, III - 2011 Screen print on paper 33” x 28” each Edition of 6

 

1979.206.200 (hyena)  - 2010 Neon on glass frame 34" x 26" Edition of 3	1979.206.143 (cow) - 2010 Neon on glass frame 35" x 30" Edition of 3	1978.412.367 (ntomo) - 2010 Neon on glass frame 51.5" x 20" Edition of 3

 

Installation view of From Hiz Hands @ Art In General, 2010

 

Installation view of From Hiz Hands @ Art In General, 2010

 

Installation view of From Hiz Hands @ Art In General, 2010

 

Installation view of In Your Words, a collaboration with Nanna Debois Buhl @ the Karen Blixen Museum, 2011

 

Installation view of In Your Words, a collaboration with Nanna Debois Buhl @ the Karen Blixen Museum, 2011

 

Installation view of In Your Words, a collaboration with Nanna Debois Buhl @ the Karen Blixen Museum, 2011

 

Untitled: Corpus I - 2011 Lithograph 36” x 24” Edition of 4	Untitled: Corpus II - 2011 Lithograph 36” x 24” Edition of 4	Untitled: Corpus III - 2011 Lithograph 36” x 24” Edition of 4

 

Installation view, until we fearless, Art Gallery of Hamilton, 2010

 

Installation view, until we fearless, Art Gallery of Hamilton, 2010

 

Installation view, until we fearless, Art Gallery of Hamilton, 2010

 

Pray For Us - 2009
Installation view @ Diaz Contemporary, 2009
Various media

In Pray For Us, a multi-channel video installation in the main gallery, the artist examines ideas of hegemony and power structures through traits of hyena societies. A video piece presented simultaneously on two screens opens to the sights and sounds of a pack of hyenas (a matriarchal society) feeding at night. A narrator tells the story of a power struggle, of one character’s struggle to take over her sister's monarchy. Reflecting world politics, the piece demonstrates Fernandes’ fascination with changing structures and fights for power. Echoing the deaths that follow such power struggles, Fernandes has created an environment in the centre of the main gallery, which conjures up feelings of loss, memorial and uncertainty. Incorporating prayer stools, candles and several television monitors flashing SOS in Morse Code, the artist draws from the Catholic tradition to create an altar of sorts. The candles – such as those lit in remembrance of a loved one – juxtaposed with the SOS signals, suggest the call for help has come too late. The south gallery wall bears a text, written in a hybrid, codified language, which ambiguously foreshadows either looming death or a sense of hope.

 

Pray For Us - 2009
Installation view @ Diaz Contemporary, 2009
Vinyl text

 

Pray For Us - 2009
Installation view @ Diaz Contemporary, 2009
Vinyl text

 

The Hunting (video still) - 2009
2-channel digital video
6 min/18 sec
Edition of 6

 

The Hunting (video still) - 2009
2-channel digital video
6 min/18 sec
Edition of 6

 

Primal Scream II - 2009 Vinyl on paper 30" x 22.5" Edition of 6	Primal Scream III - 2009 Vinyl on paper 30" x 22.5" Edition of 6

 

Future (***---***) Perfect - 2008
Shipping containers, theatre lights & hazers
10 shipping containers stacked in a crisscross formation standing approximately 35' in height

Pulsing with a dramatic lighting that signals S-O-S in morse code, this towering installation stands thirty-five feet high. Constructed out of shipping containers it addresses the trauma of migration, displacement and change. Influenced by Moshe Safdie's utopic Habitat housing scheme produced for the 1967 Montreal Exposition and designed to include all people regardless of class, race or gender, this monumental structure reflects on the failure of this ideology and the susceptibility of these social projects to capitalist forces. Future (· · · - - - · · ·) Perfect has a local relevance, reflecting on the politics of gentrification and the displacements inherent to the project of urban renewal.

 

Foe - 2008
DVD video 4 min/39 sec
Edition of 6

Foe represents video footage of me receiving lessons where I have hired an acting coach to teach me the "accents" of my cultural backgrounds. I am not interested in the authenticity of these accents but in the idea of being taught to speak in these voices. The text that I have learnt is taken from a book with the same titled as my piece. This book, a sequel to "Robinson Crusoe" was written by J. M. Coetzee. In this book, Friday (the savage) has been mutilated; his tongue has been removed and he cannot speak. For this work I have memorized the specific passage where Crusoe explains this to another.

 

Home Coming - 2008
DVD video 50 min loop
Edition of 6

At night lions loose the grouping of their prides and in the early hours of the morning they call to one another in an effort to reassemble. In this work I have created a sequences of lions calling to one another, but each time the individual lion roars a subtitle like one in a foreign film appears with the title "Go Home". In this work I am playing with the use of language, translation and interpretation. The lion's call is being interpreted as "Go Home" instead of "Come Home". The short video loops and comments on the structures of cinematic narrative, while asking the question what does it mean to "Go Home".

 

Nyumba Ata Choma - 2008
Multimedia installation
Dimensions variable

The installation responds to the current political climate in my birthplace of Kenya. In this work I am creating a false village landscape made of sniper tents. The tents have a single window (the window for the sniper to shoot from). From this window, my viewers will be able to watch a video that depicts the 1989 ivory burning that took place in Kenya, overlaid with serene footage of a camp fire. When assembled together the pseudo village will emote a sense of calmness and stability, but at a closer look the fire within reflects a different story. The video of the burning of ivory juxtaposed against the sniper tents relives a narrative of a country in disarray and shambles, which metaphorically reflects on the recent election and years of so-called democratic rule by a corrupt government.

 

Neva There - 2008
Digital posters in light boxes
47" x 68" each

The series "Neva There" takes inspiration from street posters from the Caribbean. These signs are used to advertise an event, most likely a party. Although graphic in nature the handmade signs are somewhat nonsensical; they play on language where the vernacular used becomes code. The event is never defined, but to some the text reads perfectly and tells all. I am using this as a device in my work. At first glance the posters look as though they are adverts for a music event, perhaps a reggae concert. They bare the colours red, green and gold and use slang and wording that reference Rasta culture, pointing to its philosophies regarding unity, emancipation and revolution. In the works broken English and Swahili further complicate the text and carry a political edge. One is left to interpret the language being used to avoid getting lost and find their way to the "event".

 

Authentic Pop! - 2008
Installation view
Printed balloons, ribbon, boxes & dolly
Dimensions variable

In this work I offer my audience a gift in the form of helium filled balloons. The balloons are printed with images of African masks. The balloons once inflated will become distorted and manipulated, altering the original drawing of the masks. Gallery visitors enter in the space, like tourists in a market place, and leave with something, in this case the distorted balloons. The gesture of gift giving and the sales of cultural artifacts become exposed. The balloon acts as a gift and an artifact but also as a souvenir. In the liminal space that these objects are caught between, there is a dialogue where ideas of cultural appropriation become significant. Is this ephemeral object oppressive or productive to a culture’s well-being? Can it even be representative of an “authentic” African object, before or after it is inflated?

 

Anomalia Drawing Series - 2007
Digital drawing
Dimensions variable

Anomilia is a series of digital drawings rendered through Adobe illustrator that depict creatures that are half animal and half African artefact. The bizarre beasts create hybrid creatures that take on the appearance of being from an unknown place because we do not know them. They give of the sense of having survived from a long time ago or that they have come from a futuristic planet. They live in an oscillating space, being one thing and then another. They become representative of the mythical, the exotic and primitive. They ask the questions, what are these animals and where have they come from?

 

Anomalia Drawing Series - 2007
Digital drawing
Dimensions variable

Anomilia is a series of digital drawings rendered through Adobe illustrator that depict creatures that are half animal and half African artefact. The bizarre beasts create hybrid creatures that take on the appearance of being from an unknown place because we do not know them. They give of the sense of having survived from a long time ago or that they have come from a futuristic planet. They live in an oscillating space, being one thing and then another. They become representative of the mythical, the exotic and primitive. They ask the questions, what are these animals and where have they come from?

 

Neo Primitivism 2 - 2007 Installation Deer decoys & masks Dimensions variable	Neo Primitivism - 2006 Installation Deer decoy, childrens wading pool, box & shredded paper Dimensions variable

 

Decoys are prefabricated “fake” objects used to entice and trick “real” deer into the trap of a hunter. In this installation I assemble a herd of these of false deer that stand at attention wearing plastic white masks over their faces. The masks are formed from traditional African masks taking on the look of children’s party masks or one used in carnival celebrations. The deer look odd wearing their masks and become further recognized. Instead of hiding their appearance, the mask expose their guise, breaking the illusion that the decoy presents. The masks become a trope that appropriates stereotypical ideas of “Africa”: the primitive and the exotic. The deer wearing the masks create a symbolic version of these ideas. Does a deer become camouflaged by the mask or is it made to stand-in as an “African object” because it wears the mask?

 

Shelter Unit - 2005
Installation
Ceramic deer, plants, electric fans, cardboard boxes & shredded paper
Dimensions variable

Using boxes, plants, fans and white ceramic deer, I am questioning ideas of migration and displacement. This installation represents a false landscape, but in this depiction I am also representing a type of transitional home. The boxes become a place where home can be found, but when set together they form gradients that mimic land formations. I am interested in how the boxes with the deer create a space that can depict a place of exotic nature and home while also being a place of transition and migration.

 

Turning to Summer - 2005
Tanning project
Video still

This installation is comprised of a single channel video and photographs. The project documents sessions at a tanning salon, where I monitor the changing gradation of my skin tone. The change in skin colour is recognized by the placement of stickers onto my body. The stickers are designed from textile motifs that represent my cultural backgrounds. Images of paisleys become marked on my torso, and become a body design or camouflage.

 

Natural Refuge - 2004
Installation view
Ceramic deet, ornamental grasses, cardboard boxes, electric fans & shredded paper
Dimensions variable

This installation explores landscape, using elements from interior and exterior environments. Organic materials are placed against ceramic deer in boxes, while fans blow soft breezes to activate the “atmosphere”. This contrived and fabricated landscape uses the backyard as inspiration. The backyard is a suburban creation that allows people to have a place where they can rest and relax. In recent years, North American gardens have used plants to signify the exotic. The combination of the false landscape with elements of nature creates an environment that, like the backyard, signifies the making of home and sanctuary.