Exhibition Catalogues

Candy Coated Cortex: Thomas Fernandez

Catalogue Essay, August 2018
The Secret Headquarters, Los Angeles CA

Thomas Fernandez’s latest series of paintings for Candy Coated Cortex develops after-images into a defined and detailed inking. In the form of broken-down brain stems, skull and crossbones, Peruvian waq’ollo face masks, shamans, reapers, ourobouros, shrunken heads and cigarette butts, his paintings are deconstructed dreamscapes. Sparse text inked in groovy fonts can serve as a road map (or a red herring) as the viewer pieces together the seemingly disparate symbols in each fluorescent colored piece. 

Lucky Paintings: Ingrid V. Wells

Catalogue Essay, August 2016
ATA Window Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Titled Lucky Paintings, this series fuses the classical with the current. Reality TV celebrities, contemporary politicians, and pop culture icons mix together in the tight-cropped portraiture, while saccharinely sweet depictions of plastic charms rest on bright backgrounds creating contemporary still lives. Updating these classical categories with decidedly topical and prescient subject matter allows for a feminist critique on gender expectations, global flows of power, and aesthetics.