Eva Fernandez (Australia):

(terra) australis incognita
“Acting as a critique of the violent destruction of societies by external influences, and paralleling the practices of colonisation, these forensic-like images eerily resemble sites of violence. Some of the objects have been dismantled and partly reconstructed; the flaws become apparent to serve as a critique of the process of decolonisation/reconciliation and create a tension between order and disorder. Drawing upon ideologies of hybridity in culture and nature, these strange manifestations at times metamorphasise into highly aesthetic objects, while at others become dark and menacing.”

Eva Fernandez completed a Master of Arts (Creative Arts) at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia, in 2002. She has been a practicing artist for over two decades, currently working in photography and digital based media, in addition to academic and curatorial work. Eva has held four solo exhibitions and been invited to exhibit in several group shows nationally, including Girls on Film and Mix Tape, both at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and Transient States at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Victoria. She recently curated me-take: Indigenous self-representation in Photomedia which toured Western Australia from 2012-2011. Eva’s art practice seeks to contextualise her existence in the place/space she inhabits, including exploration of her physical environment, as well as cultural and gender identity. She is currently examining the deconstruction and reconstruction of symbolically-laden objects to subtly critique the time in which they were created, and has recently begun developing a publication of narratives and photographic artworks inspired by family recipes from the Spanish Civil War.

Images © Eva Fernandez.