14.03.1998 | 26.04.1998
HOLD MY HAND | NICOLÁS FERNÁNDEZ

Fernández's background is Spanish and Swiss. A multi-media artist, he divides his time between these countries. As might be expected, he is interested in cultural signifiers- his practice, which includes writing, music, and performance, examines the construction of cultural identity. For the Southern Alberta Art Gallery he will be creating installations which uses the interior walls of the upper gallery as a 'metaphor for new foundations,' creating a building within a building, or turning the existing one inside-out.

His working method is to borrow objects and situations from everyday life and, by recontextualizing them, make them visibly anew. While the poverty of his materials- recycled paper, cardboard, his own possessions- reveals the political undertones of the work, the artist does not fetishize these things for their practical natures. Nor is the work voyeuristic; it does not purport to offer a view of the gallery of, for example, homelessness is the face of rampant consumer waste. Based on his own serious and contemplative observations of our current reality, Fernández makes work which, not without humour, forces the viewer to reconsider what is often taken for granted. Through this process, the artist reveals subtle public interventions that are part of the fabric of our cultural identity.