Noted Sculptor to Speak at VCU

By Tom Gresham

Highly regarded sculptor Teresita Fernandez, a Virginia Commonwealth University alumna, will speak at VCU next week about her work, which the New York Times critic Roberta Smith has called "beautiful and engrossing."

Fernandez will speak on Feb. 12 at 5:30 p.m. at the Grace E. Harris Hall Auditorium, 1015 Floyd Ave. The event is free and open to the public.

Fernandez is the recipient of both a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has appeared at museums and galleries around the world, including in solo exhibitions at such venues as the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.; the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo in Málaga, Spain; the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia; Castello di Rivoli in Turin, Italy; the Witte de With in Rotterdam and the Miami Art Museum.

A solo show of her work is currently on view at the Reynolds Gallery in Richmond.

In the show's catalogue, Gregory Volk, associate professor in VCU's Department of Painting and Printmaking and Department of Sculpture + Extended Media, says "Fernandez confronts the viewer with many different kinds of perception and experience, oftentimes in a single work. The remarkable thing is how such a measured and considered approach yields sculptures that offer such exhilaration and that have an air of the marvelous."

Fernandez received a master of fine arts degree in sculpture in VCU's School of the Arts in 1992. Her appearance next week is being presented by VCU's Department of Sculpture + Extended Media. Amy Hauft, chair of the department, calls Fernandez "one of our treasures."