This view of Teresita Fernández shows the artist working on her piece titled "Fire."
Painter and sculptor Teresita Fernández, recipient of a coveted "Genius Fellowship" from the MacArthur Foundation in 2005, will give a free public lecture on Jan. 27 in the Myers School of Art at The University of Akron. Free and open to the public, the lecture begins at noon in the Folk Hall Auditorium, 150 E. Exchange St., on the UA campus.
Fernández is coming to Akron during an exhibition of her work at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Cleveland from Jan. 28-May 8. "Teresita Fernández: Blind Landscape" features 10 of the artist's most recent and ambitious projects created between 2005 and 2010.
In her work, Fernández explores perception and the psychology of looking. Her sculptures often present spectacular optical illusions and evoke rainbows, sunlight, fire and water.
She is the youngest artist commissioned by the Seattle Art Museum for the recently opened Olympic Sculpture Park, where her "Seattle Cloud Cover" enables visitors to walk through a covered skyway while viewing the city skyline through tiny holes in multicolored glass.
Since 2008 she has installed several large, permanent commissions, including "Starfield" at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium, "Hothouse(Blue)" at the Louis Vuitton Maison in San Francisco, and "Stacked Waters" that occupies the entire atrium of the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas.
For more information about the lecture, call 330-972-6030 or visit the Myers School of Art.
Media contact: Cyndee Snider, 330-972-5196 or cyndee@.uakron.edu.