Sylvia Fernández: Habitando, I Don't Belong Here, We Belong Everywhere

Photo credit: Jason Sullivan Please join us for an artist talk with Sylvia Fernández at 5:30 PM. An opening reception will take place after the artist talk. In Habitando, I Don’t Belong Here, We Belong Everywhere, artist Sylvia Fernández (b. 1978, Lima, Peru) navigates the complexity of finding home everywhere and nowhere at once. Using Spanglish as a structural tool, and the flowing nature of water and air as frameworks for thinking about transformation, migration, and belonging, Fernández materializes the feeling of moving between places while searching for a sense of home. For this exhibition of new work, Fernández expands beyond personal experiences into collective awareness. Central to this shift are the Archivo de Sentires (Archive of Feelings), assembled from seven questions posed to women of different ages living around the globe, and the Archivo de Sombras (Archive of Shadows), a collection of photographs of each woman’s sun-cast shadow. The responses gathered in Archivo de Sentires have been translated into paintings, with a palette that draws on every color named in the archive. The shadows from the Archivo de Sombras appear as silhouettes, at times merging with the artist’s own body, marking presence and absence. Fernández’s adopted home of San Diego is linked by the Pacific Ocean to Lima, where she was born. San Diego’s dry terrain, waterways, shifting light, and native flora and fauna enter the paintings as fragments, reimagined into new landscapes. Birds following the Pacific Flyway, from Alaska to Patagonia, appear as symbols, moving and belonging everywhere. The exhibition design further reflects Fernández’s interest in fluidity of place and identity. Doublesided paintings hover and swirl in the gallery, inviting viewers to navigate works as they become portals for transformation and expansion.