Fernando Andrade
Espacio (2020)
30" x 30"
Acrylic on Canvas
Participant: 2020
Emerging Artist Award

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Born in 1987 in the border town of Acuna, Mexico, Fernando Andrade has lived in San Antonio, Texas, since he was seven years old. During Andrade's early childhood years, it was considered safe for children to play outside and he remembers playing outdoor games with his family during those years. As an artist, Andrade copes with the turmoil in his native homeland with two distinct bodies of work: representational drawings and abstract paintings. While the drawings are narrative explorations of the events taking place, the paintings are vehicles for nurturing feelings of hopeful joy and optimism. In his figurative drawings, Andrade creates simple narratives based on stories he has heard or experienced relating to social political events. Believing that everyone has their own childhood memories and can identify with the innocence of youth, Andrade stages some of his work using scenarios of children in place of adults, a strategy for enticing viewers to engage in his conversation. In the series Tierra y Libertad, groups of children appear to be playing childhood games but, upon closer inspection, are surrogates for the perpetrators and their victims. In his abstract paintings, Andrade expresses a freedom from the anguish that underlies his figurative works. Working improvisationally, the artist creates organic compositions that are colorful and animated. Viewing his process as a kind of spiritual meditation, Andrade becomes free to imagine cosmic visions that have rhythmic affinities with music or dance, and which celebrate the splendor and preciousness of life itself.