The Work of the Artist Dex Fernandez

Illustration: Dex Fernandez. Good Morning HOBOS, detail, 2015. Acrylic, ink, embroidery, on a digital photograph

Dex Fernandez is an artist that comes from the graffiti/street art tradition. His work is a creative collision of styles, colors, shapes, lines. He often uses his own digital photographs as a background to a whole panoply of information that is built up in layers onto the base photograph.

These layers can and do consist of abstract pattern, religious symbols, body parts, cartoons, tattoos, to name just a few. Dex plays with these references as he also plays with larger ideas, such as the connection and disparity between high and low art, between history and biology, between beauty and crudeness, and between innocence and sexuality.

Illustration: Dex Fernandez. All of a Sudden I miss Everyone, 2015. Acrylic, ink, embroidery, on a digital photograph

Illustration: Dex Fernandez. ATM, 2015. Acrylic, ink, embroidery, on a digital photograph

These are important combinations and complex relationships that dwell within our contemporary society, and they are often ones that are tentatively side-stepped, or deliberately overlooked. It is important for the artist to highlight these most important references to the world we both live in, and perhaps more importantly, the world we pretend to live in.

Dex is able to express himself through a wide range of formats, including wall murals, street sticker art, altered photographs, as well as fashion and accessories, all part of the panoply that is such an integral aspect of our daily lives. The world at large, in all its contrasts and its illusions is Dex's canvas, and his compositions are a reflection of his use of that larger canvas.

Illustration: Dex Fernandez. Burboun, 2015. Acrylic, ink, gold leaf, embroidery, on a digital photograph

Illustration: Dex Fernandez. Don't be a Stranger, detail, 2015. Acrylic, ink, embroidery, on a digital photograph

Dex's portraits are extraordinary pieces of work. Originally photos of friends and fellow artists, he hand paints intricate and colourful patterns and shapes around and over the original portraits. The multiplicity of color, line, and symbol helps to create a new visual for the portrait, grafting a new mask, a new identity even, onto the original.

In some respects, the original face becomes more than it was, as if the artist has added a dynamic dimension to the original portrait, expanding the character of the individual so that they seem ready to burst out of their contained portrait within a new heightened persona.

Illustration: Dex Fernandez. Entrap, 2015. Acrylic, ink, embroidery, on a digital photograph

Illustration: Dex Fernandez. Mr. Cornflake, 2015. Acrylic, ink, gold leaf, embroidery, on a digital photograph

Interestingly, Dex adds an element of stitch to his animated portraits, often in the guise of bright neon thread that is loosely aligned around facial features, often the eyes. This embroidered embellishment adds one more level of interpretation, or perhaps reinterpretation to the facial character of the individual.

The work shown in this article is part of an exhibition of Dex Fernandez work running at the Owen James Gallery in Brooklyn, New York. Dex has been able to manipulate the gallery in order to enhance and project his work within his own framework. He has covered the main gallery wall with a mural composed of bright neon yellow and black paint, coloured tape and stickers. The collage and mural are encouraged to interact in order to create an installation that is at once a whole entity in its own right, but at the same time has distinct and singular elements, consisting of Dex's portraits, that are separate, but also part of the larger picture.

Illustration; Dex Fernandez. Plankton, 2015. Acrylic, ink, mylar collage, embroidery, on a digital photograph

Illustration: Dex Fernandez. Shernita, 2015. Acrylic, ink, embroidery, on a digital photograph

The exhibition of the work of the artist Dex Fernandez runs from October 30 till November 29 2015 at the Owen James Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. More about the exhibition can be found at their comprehensive website which can be found here. Also, much more of Dex's innovative and inspirational work can be found at his own website, which can be found here.

All of the imagery of Dex's work that was used to illustrate this article, was kindly supplied by the Owen James Gallery. Please be aware of this, and do not republish the illustrations of Dex's work without the permission of the gallery.

Illustration: Dex Fernandez. Installation within the Owen James Gallery, 2015

Jette Clover and the Graffiti of Life

Illustration: Jette Clover. White Wall 1, 2009.

The work of the textile and mixed media artist Jette Clover deals with the graffiti of life. She has chosen to represent the visual language of the human species through the use of the written, rather than that of the spoken language. This is an important point to make, particularly as the written word becomes evermore increasingly vital to the everyday running of our contemporary world. However, although written language itself is relatively new in comparison to the age of the human species as a whole, representational markers of our presence have long been seen as a necessary part of our lives. Whether writing with recognised lettering, pictograms or other symbols, all are representations of both the individual and the culture they inhabited. It is this recognition of the potential of the individual through mark-making in whatever fashion, which seems to be at the heart of these particular pieces of textile work.

Illustration: Jette Clover. White Wall 2, 2009.

The six pieces of work shown in this article were produced by Clover in 2009. It is relatively easy to recognise the influence and inspiration of the partial layering that can be found on a poster plastered wall in any contemporary town or city. These multi-layered poster walls can easily take on the guise of fragmentary messages that are visible through layers of information. Clover has cleverly drawn analogies between this imagery from our contemporary world, and given it meaning and dimension well beyond its immediate remit.

Illustration: Jette Clover. White Wall 3, 2009.

Clover is interested in not only the scattered and disconnected markers left by generations of the human species, but more importantly to all of us on a much more personal level, the wish to leave a presence of ourselves in some form. Graffiti itself can be seen as a wish fulfilment of the human spirit. I was here is perhaps the crudest but most effective form of at least partial celebrity if not full-blown immortality. To be remembered, if only partially, is all that many of us wish, and future generations may well understand us only on a level that can be recognised through Clover's work, a letter here a number there, all the rest has been obliterated.

Illustration: Jette Clover. White Wall 4, 2009.

It is this obliteration that is interesting within this specific set of work by Clover. It is called the White Series, and although, to some extent it is an exercise in the exploration of the lack of colour contrasts and the simplicity that can be found in shades of white, it is also a representation of much more.

We as individual observers have to peer at the visual vocabulary that has been set out for us. Very little is made clear to us and we can only surmise as to the messages that were originally intended. This gives us a very acute awareness as to how future generations observe and portray the past. All that was our lives has been truncated and randomly edited. This is not who we were, but it is who we will eventually become. To see and interpret the human species, and through that the human condition, through a partially whitewashed wall is an extremely clever and sophisticated analogy, and all admiration has go to the artist fir portraying it as such.

Illustration: Jette Clover. Whitewash, 2009.

The visual vocabulary shown in these pieces of work are of such a permanent and instantly recognisable nature. They so clearly represent the human capacity and longing to project meaning with words. More importantly still is the longing to project life and longevity into those words. What appears at first to be nothing more than the transitory nature of poster art becomes a need for both the continued representation and even hope for the perpetuation of countless successive generations.   

Jette Clover has shown her work extensively in both North America and Europe. She has been featured in a number of publications, also on both sides of the Atlantic. She has a comprehensive website where much more of her work can be seen, along with an extensive list of exhibition highlights where her work can be seen through till Summer 2011.

Illustration: Jette Clover. Whitewash 5, 2009.

All images were used with the kind permission of the artist.

Reference links:
Jette Clover website