Listen Louder: Ana Teresa Fernández

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Gallery 1
October 7, 2023 – January 21, 2024

di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art is pleased to present Listen Louder: Ana Teresa Fernández (October 7, 2023-January 21, 2024). In her largest career survey to date, San Francisco-based multidisciplinary artist Fernández shows paintings, sculptures, and films alongside site-specific installations and performances exploring the intersection of migration and climate change.  
Land-based installations – including a glittering ‘SHHH’ floating on di Rosa’s Winery Lake, and an exhortation to ‘LISTEN’ visible from Sonoma Highway – encourage us to listen louder to the earth, and each other. Inside the gallery, the exhibition features paintings, sculptures, videos, and photographs from major projects including At the Edge of Distance (2022), Of Bodies and Borders (2018 – 2019), and Borrando La Frontera (Erasing the Border) (2011/2021) which foreground Fernández’s continued inquiry into narratives around the border.  
Fernández’s rigorous practice emerges from site-specific interventions and embodied actions, and her work frequently meditates on how borderlands delimit movement and stasis; freedom and detention; and even life and death. Through enacted narratives, she embodies the stories that divide but also bind us as human beings sharing a planet of great fragility and beauty.
Exhibition support provided by:
Lydia Chavez & Mark Rabine
Kate Eilertsen & Michael Muscardini
di Rosa Patrons Circle
Ethos Pathos Logos
Performed October 8, 2023
Featuring Meredith Webster, Adji Cissoko, and Cora Cilburn  

About the Artist

Ana Teresa Fernández (b. 1981) is an artist of border erasure who elevates the intersectionality of place, person, and politics to create a common human vernacular. Time-based actions and social gestures are her syntax. Land, history, gender, climate, and culture are her subjects. Performance, video, photography, painting, and sculpture became her dynamic tools of grammar.  
Born in Tampico, Mexico, Fernández grew up in California and made her home in San Francisco. She has created residencies and public work in Haiti, Brazil, Spain, South Africa, Cuba, Mexico & throughout the United States. Major public projects include On The Horizon, which was featured in the 2021 Lands End exhibition, organized by the FOR-SITE Foundation. In one highly visible work, she erased the border between Tijuana & San Diego by painting a portion sky blue while wearing a tango dress and heels to create an illusion of a hole on the wall from afar. 
Fernández’s work was featured as a Solo Booth at the Armory Show in 2022 as part of a special curated presentation of work by artists centered on environments and borders selected by Carla Acevedo-Yates. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; the Indianapolis Museum of Art; the Blanton Museum of Art; the Denver Art Museum; the Nevada Museum of Art; and the Kadist Art Foundation, among others. 
Ana Teresa Fernández (n. 1980) es una artista de borrado de fronteras que eleva la interseccionalidad del lugar, la persona y la política para crear una lengua vernácula humana común. Acciones basadas en el tiempo y gestos sociales son su sintaxis. La tierra, la historia, el género, el clima y la cultura son sus temas. La performance, el vídeo, la fotografía, la pintura y la escultura se convirtieron en sus herramientas dinámicas de gramática.

Nacida en Tampico, México, Fernández creció en California y estableció su hogar en San Francisco. Ha creado residencias y obra pública en Haití, Brasil, España, Sudáfrica, Cuba, México y en todo Estados Unidos. Los principales proyectos públicos incluyen On The Horizon, que se presentó en la exposición Lands Endextion 2021, organizada por la Fundación FOR-SITE. En una obra muy visible, borró la frontera entre Tijuana y San Diego pintando una parte de azul cielo mientras vestía un vestido de tango y tacones para crear la ilusión de un agujero en la pared desde lejos.

El trabajo de Fernández se presentó como stand individual en el Armory Show en 2022 como parte de una presentación especial curada de trabajos de artistas centrados en entornos y fronteras seleccionados por Carla Acevedo-Yates. Su obra se encuentra en las colecciones permanentes de los Museos de Bellas Artes de San Francisco; el Museo de Arte de Indianápolis; el Museo de Arte Blanton; el Museo de Arte de Denver; el Museo de Arte de Nevada; y la Fundación de Arte Kadist, entre otros.
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