“You know you completed your creative endeavor when the work you hold in your hands has a soul of its own.”
Cesar Fernandez was born in Asturias (Northern Spain), an enclave of beauty charged with traditions, human warmth, spectacular landscapes and vernacular architecture. From his childhood, Fernandez inherited a profound connection to the ocean, and the hand-spinning and knotting gestures taught by his grandfather when fishing, a practice rooted into local culture of this region bordered by the Cantabrian Sea.
Fernandez then grew up in the skateboarding and surfing culture, revolving around the search of flow. His penchant for arts was early on impacted by architecture - Frei Otto and Calatrava - and sculpture - Jorge de Oteiza. All the way, nature remained his main source of inspiration: “Nature has a lot of knowledge, just sit and listen, you will learn a lot.”
His passion for surfing and appreciation for the soul-soothing balinese culture led him to move to the “Island of Gods” in 2009. From there, he delved deeper into his artistic practice, which seamlessly bridges visual and philosophical concepts. He also became a father, the most transformative event of his life, which benevolence pours out of his genuine and generous character.
Cesar Fernandez operates from an expressly minimalist and abstract sensibility.
His work is a profound exploration of the relationship between the void and the matter, and its perception: while Western views see the void as a mere absence of matter, Eastern philosophies view it as a transformative force. Always drawn to scratch beneath the surface to tap into the essence, Fernandez interrogates these dichotomies, from a philosophical, geometrical and metaphysical perspective.
Two decades of constant experimentation result in a substantial body of work spanning from canvas, sculpture and monumental installations, with an intention of transcendence:
“You know you completed your creative endeavor when the work you hold in your hands has a soul of its own.”
Cesar Fernandez plays with symmetries and tensions to masterfully bend the space-time continuum. Evocation of his personal story, he affectionates materials such as copper, hand-spun thread and resin, which he delicately arranges on canvases, seamlessly transitioning from two-dimensional to three-dimensional forms.
By employing minimalistic lines, geometrical precision and space intuition, the artist is capable of shaping visual statements that linger on the edge: the works oscillate between presence and absence, the seen and the unseen, suggesting materiality and void.
Each piece invites the viewer to connect emotionally and intellectually, transmuting the void into a gateway to explore the essence of existence.