Michael Fernandes |
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Michael Fernandes is many things: an interdisciplinary artist, an educator, an improvisational musician, a gifted ping pong player and an avid garlic farmer, among others. Born in Trinidad in 1944, he immigrated to Canada in the 1960’s, living in Montreal and Toronto before settling in Nova Scotia. Michael has taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) since 1973. In describing his work Michael rejects many notions associated with a conventional understanding of art. For him there is no framing of what art is and is not, everyday actions and objects all have something to contribute. In turn, he considers his life an evolving artwork, something which can be shared with a public audience but does not have to be. These ideas are explored through painting, photography, sculpture, video, performance, and installation. No Sphere (1988), Michael Fernandes’ work at the Embassy Cultural House was a two-part installation, occupying one of the hotel’s 2nd floor guests' rooms and spilling over into the main floor gallery/cafe area. Conceived as a meditation on dreaming, the hotel guest room featured a large pink wall painting made to be seen through a full-length mirror. Inscribed within the painting was a modern-day parable about a man’s journey to rid himself of the fly he had eaten by mistake. In the story several doctors are unable to cure the man’s condition (the buzzing fly inside) with modern medicine. He finds relief when a stranger asks him to lay down with eyes closed and point to the fly’s location. The stranger places a glass with a freshly caught fly on the spot and convinces the patient he is cured. The choice to physically carve the letters into the wall was made in reference to the inscribed signatures of former tenants found in the room’s closet. The second component to No Sphere consisted of a set of printed placemats that were used in the ECH gallery/cafe area. Written on the placemats was a related poem on dreaming, made to capture the attention of those who had just awoken, perhaps still thinking about their own dreams from the night past. Michael had previously exhibited at the Forest City Gallery in the early 1980's when Ron Benner was the gallery's manager. During his visit to London at that time, Ron took Michael to the clay cliffs of Lake Erie, between Plum Point and Patrick Point - where upon after descending the heights of the cliffs, Michael found a fallen tree to rest upon where he had a view of the sky and the sound of the waves. Michael Fernandes has exhibited extensively in galleries across Canada and internationally. His work was included in Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965-1980, the nationally touring exhibition which positioned his work within the concepts of Fluxus movement and conceptual art. In 2020, he received the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts. His iphone work was the first work submitted to the open-call exhibition Hiding in Plain Sight. Please visit his website for more information. |
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Michael Fernandes, "Writing on the Wall", 2020, Iphone video
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Recent Work
Pinocchio's Assistant, 2020
Before and After the Electric Car, 2020
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Grow Rock, 2020
This One, 2020
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