Week 1 - Artist Essay - Ana Teresa Fernandez
About the Artist :
Ana Teresa Fernandez was born in Tampico, Mexico. She went to San Francisco Art Institute for college, getting her Bachelors there. She won many awards ever since the year of 2005 to even this year, using her abstract paintings to use symbolism. Ana has won awards internationally, such as Africa, Mexico and even Haiti while winning in the U.S. This shows her influence and power her work creates all over the world and not just where she resides. She travels and gives many lectures to colleges about her work and herself, inspiring many artists and those who are impacted by the problems she addresses in these works. Along with lectures, she had many articles published on magazines and newspapers such as the Hufffington Post. Ana even taught at many universities, becoming an art teacher and professor all over.
Form Analysis
This artwork has lots of water and brighter colors in the collection. It has lots of colors and shades of blue and tan for the skin color and vibrant colors that stick out to the eye. It is a larger piece of work and it is quite clear by standing by it, you notice it is a person swimming in water. It is a big and clear piece of work, nothing to really get close to and notice minor details, the hands are the closest, using perspective to look closer than the rest of the body that seems to be further behind. It has a basic color base and used the blending of colors really nicely to create the water look, making it look like it is a view of the underwater background. There seems to be a person swimming in the water, creating ripples and lots of distortion on the top of the water, and they seem to have their clothes on while swimming which seems to be some sort of symbolism since people don't usually swim in their clothes, especially heels.
Content Analysis
This picture is from her Ablution set, it represents the purity and brings in the idea of religion and cleansing ones sins within the water and to show and discuss what it is truly like to be pure from the many perspectives of all the people in the world. This is my favorite piece of work from her, it really shows the distortion of people's perceptions of what is truly "clean" and "pure". There is lots of bubbles and foam from the water, really making it difficult to see and creates ripples around the area of the water. It could represent calmness and the ripples of impact from the distortion from the problem. Ana really does touch upon a sensitive topic, one that we have always had problems with in this society, so it is something that truly needed to be addressed. The work all revolving around body of water, enhancing the symbolism in her work and the real problem she is showing within these paintings. It is showing the problems of religion and perspective in the works, trying to explain that there is no clear and true idea of "pure" and that it is so thrown around and used so much, it is just a large blob of ideas and different ways it can be seen as.
Synthesis / My Experience
For me, this artwork brings a sense of clarity and serenity to my mind. I feel at ease with this artwork, the water and the technique of the ripples of the water and underwater work makes me feel like I am in the water too. It is calm and relaxing, making me think of no anxiety or worries of judgment of other people. That the person swimming in clothes may seem weird or strange to us, but to others it is normal, something not so strange and that we are all different in perspective but yet should still accept and be at ease with ourselves rather than worrying about other people that have different views from us. That I am more calm than wondering why this person is wearing clothes in a pool with heels, and maybe to them, it is calming and relaxing for them. So we shouldn't be so worried and caught up in other's beliefs and perspectives but just our own to be ourselves and at peace within.