As One IX
Date2017
Maker
Brendan Fernandes
Canadian (born Kenya), born 1979
Label TextFernandes is Canadian of Kenyan and Goan (South Asian) descent, and his last name evokes the complex circuits of exchanges between the Portuguese colonial apparatus and western India. In his work, Fernandes is invested in bodies that move, showing that the human body has a range of permutations, meanings, and identities. The artist and his practice do not hold a fixed identity or a singular idea of Europe, Africa, or India. Overall, he envisions “a different process of communication,” one that is body-driven.
These photographs are local: Fernandes used dancers from the Pacific Northwest Ballet in the auditorium of the Seattle Art Museum alongside African masks from SAM’s permanent collection. Using gestures derived from classical French ballet, the two dancers address the African masks with formality and etiquette. Compositionally, the dancers’ heads are hidden, which allows for the masks to stand in for the dancers’ missing faces. Through such juxtapositions, Fernandes forges a bridge between the inanimate and animate.
Object number2019.27.2
ProvenanceThe artist; [Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, Illinois]; purchased from gallery by Christopher and Alida Latham, Seattle, Washington, 2019
Exhibition HistoryBuffalo, New York, University of Buffalo Art Galleries, The Language of Objects, Apr. 22 - July 30, 2017.
Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Embodied Change: South Asian Art Across Time, Jan. 14 - July 10, 2022.Credit LineGift of Christopher and Alida Latham
Dimensions34 x 48 in. (86.4 x 121.9 cm)
MediumDigital print
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