Sylvia Fernández and Jamie Franks: 'Shape Shifting'

Opening reception: 6-8 p.m. June 17.

Viewable by appointment through July 8. Visit Two Rooms on Instagram for more details.

About the artists:
Sylvia Fernández’s (b. 1978, Lima, Perú) paintings explore the boundaries of human and animal minds and bodies in relation to their environments. She intuitively responds to the materiality of paint until she arrives at imagery that connects internal moments and body parts to external landscapes and their natural elements, flora, and fauna. Her “internal landscapes“ exist as potential paradises that can lead us to consider an alliance with nature to find different habitats to belong and coexist.

Fernández was born in Lima, Perú where she studied Fine Art at Escuela Superior de Arte Corriente Alterna, graduating with a gold medal in 2002. For two decades, she worked in Lima, showing her work locally and abroad. In 2022, she moved to San Diego, California, where she now lives and works. Fernández has recently been in group and solo shows at Tyger Tyger Gallery in Asheville, NC, Pivo Satelite in São Paulo, Brasil, Campo Garzon in Uruguay, Galería del Paseo in Lima, Perú, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo MAC in Lima, Perú, Salón ACME in Mexico City, Mexico, and ICPNA Miraflores in Lima, Perú.

Jamie Franks (b. 1994, San Diego, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist working in San Diego, CA. Her work has been exhibited at the San Diego International Airport, Bread & Salt, Ice Gallery, Canon Art Gallery, and Art Produce in San Diego, and the Sesnon Gallery at University of California, Santa Cruz.“I love going to museums. I love their indisputable logic and hierarchy. I love most moments when their logic is disrupted and the institution shows its hand. In these thrilling and dubious moments when the illusion of control is broken, I believe we are allowed a view into an invisible potential of an art object. They are limitless and dead, rendered between meaning and meaninglessness, perhaps situated at both simultaneously, perhaps neither. This body of work comes from fracture and disruption, and materializes to answer critically, desperately, self-consciously and maybe stupidly with something aspiring to be love, it’s unclear.Creating art feels like the ultimate rejection of nihilism; it is always optimistic to make a gesture that expands beyond the agency and limitations of my own body to engage with the world in earnest. My process begins with inquiry followed by a deep investigation. Research and failure are always invaluable companions to the process, as is a sense of humor. I chose materials and processes based upon how they may best serve my questions, rarely providing answers and more often than not if the process is successful, posing further questions. What are the limitations of imposing control over material? How can I reconcile an expectation of permanence with the inherency of entropy? Through the process, can I stop time? Through the process, can I cultivate a genuine care or understanding of material and place?”

Related links:
Two Rooms Gallery on Instagram
Jamie Franks on Instagram
Sylvia Fernández on Instagram