Brendan Fernandes


Brendan Fernandes is a Canadian contemporary artist. He specializes in installation and visual art and currently serves as a faculty member at Northwestern University teaching art theory and practice.

Early life

Fernandes was born in Nairobi, in Kenya, in 1979; his parents were of Goan descent. The family moved to Canada when he was nine years old, and he went to school in Newmarket, Ontario.

Education

Fernandes professionally trained as a ballet dancer, and would bind his feet in order to improve his form. Unfortunately, he tore his hamstring during his senior year in college, thus ending his dance career. He then went on to train as a visual artist and completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at York University in Toronto, and then pursued a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario. In 2006, he was a participant in the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan, New York.

Exhibitions and performances

Fernandes exhibited an installation and series of events at titled The Master and Form, in 2018. The series explored mastery and discipline within the culture of ballet through the use of designed objects that enable dancers to perfect and extend iconic positions. This work was featured in the 2019 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art
In 2017 at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles Fernandes presented Free Fall 49, a work that addressed the 2016 massacre at The Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. The performance was a choreography of eight dancers, improvised over two hours of music produced by Tom Krell of How to Dress Well. Music samples interspersed at abrupt intervals – reminiscent of the staccato of gunfire, the beat cut into the propulsive music 49 times, cuing the dancers first to hit the ground, then rise in moments of memorial and resurrection. This performance art piece was later presented in the Kogod Courtyward of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in June 2019.
In 2011, Fernandes was included in Found in Translation, exhibition at The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York.