Fausto Fernandez
Flowing Overlapping Gesture 2.0
On display November 4–13, 2022
Phoenix, Arizona
In 2010, two years before the official Canal Convergence, Fausto Fernandez created Flowing Overlapping Gesture, a site-specific floating installation over the canal commissioned by Scottsdale Public Art and managed by Margaret Bruning, former director of civic art for Los Angeles County and former associate director for Scottsdale Public Art in Arizona. The artwork installation logistics was complex; a group of people assembled, painted, and installed in the dry canal for a period of two weeks. The artwork rose to the surface by floating when the water returned. It was originally made of foam—an insulator used in new home construction, and, like the canal system, it helps make life in the desert possible for the modern dweller. Unfortunately, after the work was completed, half of the project had to be dismantled due to an approaching storm, which destroyed part of the project, making it impossible to reassemble with water back in the canal. The project never had an official opening and was never presented entirely to the public. This project is now presented in augemented reality—12 years later—as Flowing Overlapping Gesture 2.0, with the assistance of Hoverlay, an augmented reality platform, and animations by Nicholas Townsend.
Fernandez incorporates machines and stylized motifs of common tools such as pliers and gears in his paintings as objects that require human force to work by helping us carry out particular functions. The tools and machines serve as metaphors for how, when we are in love, we lose sight of reality and our true nature, making our behavior mechanical and autonomous.
Biography
Fausto Fernandez was born in El Paso, Texas, and grew up in Ciudad Juarez in Chihuahua, Mexico. He currently lives in Phoenix. He is a mixed-media collage artist, whose artworks include a variety of paintings, public art, and community engagement projects. He is most known for large-scale, multimedia paintings, and site-specific installations.
Fernandez’s public artworks in Arizona include the temporary site-specific installation at the Scottsdale Waterfront, which was commissioned by Scottsdale Public Art in 2010; the terrazzo floor design at the Sky Train Station at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, commissioned by the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture; the sculptural art installation at the entrance of The Helios Education Foundation in Phoenix; and an immersive public art sculpture in a park at a community called Alamar in Avondale.
His paintings employ the use of traditional media, photography, and found objects. In his studio work, he layers identifiable subjects with abstract elements in dense arrangements, resulting in large compositions that serve as metaphors for human interaction and behavior. He has created artworks inspired by mathematical equations, technology, preservation of culture, and mythology.