english below

Patricia Fernández er gestur í myndlistardeild vikuna 10-14 okt. Í erindi sínu segir hún frá nýlegum verkum og ræðir rannsóknaraðferðir sínar, en á undanförnum árum hefur hún unnið út frá gönguferðum, og rakið flóttaleiðir einstaklinga sem flúðu spænsku borgarastyrjöldina, og áhrif styrjaldarinnar til langs tíma. Persónuleg frásögn einkennir verk hennar, en hún notar minningar, hið vanrækta og óhlutbundna til að tengja saman fólk og staði. Helsta viðfangsefni Fernández eru minningar sem breytast og ferðast manna á milli og einstaklingsbundin upplifun sem hún miðlar gjarnan í málverkumog skrásetningu.

Í fyrirlestri sínum mun hún ræða sérstaklega nýlegt verk, Points of Departure: Five Walks, sem hún sýndi nýlega í Commonwealth & Council galleríinu í Los Angeles. 

Points of Departure:
Five Walks eftir Patriciu Fernández er ört stækkandi og áþreyfanleg saga fundinna og tilbúinna skjala sem eru vitnisburður reynslu spænskra lýðveldissinna sem flúðu í útlegð innan og utan landamæra Spánar á meðan ríkisstjórn einræðisherrans Francos stóð (1939-75). Á árunum 2012-14 lagði Fernández í fimm gönguferðir yfir Pýrenea fjöllin sem skilja að Spán og Frakkland, og rakti flótta mikils fjölda spænskra lýðveldissina á leiðinni, sem gefið var nafnið La Retirada. Á þeim gönguleiðum sem listamaðurinn fór reyndi hún að þræða sömu leið og þá sem var lýst fyrir henni í viðtölum við fjölskylduvini og einstaklinga sem hún kynntist á meðan á rannsókninni stóð. Með því að endurgera þessar sögulegu flóttaleiðir annarra og rita flóttasögu þeirra inn í líkamsminni sitt, tengdi Fernández sig við fortíð sem enn gerir vart við sig í spænsku þjóðfélagi og minni og hún þekkir úr eigin fjölskyldu. Ásamt því að vinna út frá upplýsingum sem viðmælendur létu henni í té, hafði listamaðurinn áhuga á gripum sem standa eftir flóttann, ásamt gripum sem glötuðust í ferlinu. Á meðan gönguferðunum fimm stóð skrásetti Fernández sína eigin göngu yfir Pýreneafjöllin. Points of Departure: Five Walks varð þannig leið til þess að skrifa og endurheimta persónulegar sögur af fólksflutningum í gegnum muni og skjöl, bæði sögulegar heimildir grafnar upp í skjalasöfnum víðsvegar um Evrópu ásamt heimildum búnum til af henni sjálfri. Í arkífu-innsetningum Fernández birtist þannig togstreytan um opinberar og persónulegar frásagnir.

Um listamanninn
Fernández útskrifaðist með MFA gráðu frá California Institute of the Arts 2010 en lærði áður við Saint Martins College of Art, University of California, Los Angeles. Verk Fernández hafa verið sýnd í Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos á Spáni, Los Angeles Contemporary Archive (LACA), the Hammer Museum og víðar. Fernández hefur hlotið viðurkenningar fyrir verk sín, meðal annars Joan Mitchell Grant, California Community Foundation Fellowship (2011), France Los Angeles Exchange Grant (2012), og Lincoln City Fellowship (2015) auk þess sem hún hefur dvalið í gestavinnustofum Fondazione Antonio Ratti (2013), 18th Street Arts Center (2014), Headlands Center for the Arts (2015), D-Flat, México, D.F. (2016), and Récollets, Paris (2016). Hún býr og starfar í LA.

 

Visiting Artist Lecture: Patricia Fernández
Friday October 14, 1pm

Iceland Academy of the Arts
Department of Fine Art

Patricia Fernández is currently a visiting artist at the Iceland Academy of the Arts, department of fine art. In her open lecture she will discuss her recent work along with her research practice. In recent years she has carried out a series of walks, and traced the routes of exiles fleeing the Spanish Civil War, and the long term effects of the war.

Fernández uses personal narrative, memory, omission and abstraction to transmit histories and build connection between people and places. She works primarily with painting and archives in order to investigate the inaccuracy of inherited memories and the subjectivity of personal experience. 

In her talk she will focus on a recent project, Points of Departure: Five Walks, exhibited at Commonwealth & Council in Los Angeles. It is an expanding material history of found and constructed documents that attests to the experiences of Spanish Republicans who went into exile both within and beyond the borders of Spain during the Franco regime (1939-75). Between 2012-14, Fernández embarked on five walks across the Pyrenees mountains that separate Spain and France, retracing the mass exodus of Spanish Republicans known as La Retirada. The specific routes the artist traveled attempted to retrace those described to her in interviews by family friends and acquaintances she met in the course of her research. In re-staging these historical departures made by others, Fernández engaged with a past that persists into the present day, actively inscribing the recollections of others into her own bodily memory. Beyond these verbal remembrances of passage gathered from her interlocutors, the artist became interested in the objects that had survived their exilic crossings, as well as those material traces that did not. Along her five walks, Fernández in turn collected records of her own journeys through the mountain passes of the Pyrenees. Points of Departure: Five Walks became a means of recuperating and inscribing these personal histories of migration (including her own) through relics and documents both recovered and created by the artist into an archival installation that resists synopsis.

Bio
Patricia Fernández (b. 1980 in Burgos, Spain; lives and works in Los Angeles) studied at Saint Martins College of Art, University of California, Los Angeles, and received an MFA from California Institute of the Arts (2010). She has exhibited her work at Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, Spain; LA, Los Angeles; and Los Angeles Contemporary Archive (LACA). Her project A Record of Succession was included in Made in L.A. 2012 at the Hammer Museum. She is a recipient of Joan Mitchell Grant (2010), California Community Foundation Fellowship (2011), France Los Angeles Exchange Grant (2012), and Lincoln City Fellowship (2015), and an artist resident of Fondazione Antonio Ratti (2013), 18th Street Arts Center (2014), Headlands Center for the Arts (2015), D-Flat, México, D.F. (2016), and Récollets, Paris (2016).