Brooklyn artist Teresita Fernández creates a new genre of large-scale, site-specific sculpture

Over the course of more than 20 years, Teresita Fernández has expanded upon the large-scale, site-specific landscape sculptor work of artists like Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Christo Yavacheff, and Jeanne-Claude (the latter two designed The Gates installation in Central Park in 2005)—though to many critics, and certainly to this magazine staff, with a wit and delicacy refreshingly new. From her Brooklyn studio, the 47-year-old both paints and sculpts, and her work has been featured in venues like Fort Worth’s Modern Art Museum and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. She has been the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant, and has served on the United States Commission of Fine Arts.

For her most ambitious City project to date, “Fata Morgana,” installed in Manhattan’s Madison
Square Park in June of last year (and seen here), Fernandez produced a sculpture consisting of 500 feet of golden, mirror-polished discs that, according to a statement from the Madison Square Park Conservancy, “…create canopies above the pathways around the Park’s central Oval Lawn. The work is a horizontal mirage that forms across the horizon line, introducing a shimmering element that engages visitors in a dynamic experience.”

“What’s thrilling to me, of course, is to see it with people,” Fernández told CBS News’ Martha Teichner. “The reflective surface needs to be activated by all that motion of urban activity.” It was estimated that some ten million city residents and visitors saw the sculpture before it was dismantled early this year.

More recently, the artist’s work has been on display at Anthony Meier Fine Arts in San Francisco. Inside the more than 100-year-old house that shelters the gallery, Fernández created a blazing landscape made from thousands of glazed ceramic tiles on the white gallery walls—an effect bringing to mind the light and shadow chiaroscuro techniques in Old Master sketches.

Teresita Fernández —
Lehmann Maupin Gallery
536 West 22nd Street, Manhattan
212.255.2923 / lehmannmaupin.com