Nicasio Fernandez “Off to a Rocky Start”

Kustera Projects Red Hook

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Kustera Projects presents Off to a Rocky Start, an exhibition of new work by Nicasio Fernandez. This will be the artist’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery.

Nicasio Fernandez’s application of slapstick humor and cartoonish imagery intertwine chaos and order, inventing a dialogue that is solely imaginative. Off to a Rocky Start takes a thematic trip into the past; visualizing prehistoric life as a zany affair. The odd, occupying figures are intellectual simpletons who mix moments of ineptitude with cerebral clarity. In this world, the tools created are a means of leisure and entertainment. In the painting “Still Getting Around” a legless, figure has mounted a gator and uses a motivation stick to aimlessly enjoy a stroll on the beach. Displays of dominance, trickery, violence, bawdy situations, and more adorn Fernandez’s complex canvases.

Chaos and order are not only essential to the imagery but integral to his physically involved process. Thin skins are glazed for spatial features, details and illusionary effects. Copious amounts of paint are meticulously extruded in luscious layers onto the surface only to be cut into, shaved and sanded to achieve a surreal quality. The lucid globs of paint Fernandez has formed into rocks, tools, strange distorted figures, among other things, begin to exit the confines of the canvas into our dimension; vacillating the viewer’s position between voyeur and participant in the action.

Nicasio Fernandez was born in 1993 in Yonkers, NY, and received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2015. His work has been exhibited at the SVA Chelsea Gallery, Kustera Projects, Lesley Heller’s Workspace, Field Projects, Stella Elkins Gallery, Spring/Break Art Show, Art Athina, and 0-0 LA. He currently lives and works in Yonkers and Mahopac NY.