I have always made art. It is an irrepressible impulse and not a choice as a visual artist.

 

I have travelled throughout the world and this has influenced the variety of media I use: oil paint, watercolour,

machine-based embroidery, murals, batik and mosaics to name a few.

 

I love appropriating and reinterpreting found images: famous artworks (Hogarth, Velasquez, Durer),

clip art, hardware catalogues, religious iconography, street art.

 

I have a background in community development and activism, and I approach people with curiosity, compassion,

and a belief in social justice. 

 

I am inspired to make art about the best and worst of human nature and the social conditions.

I perpetually vacillate between joy and nihilism.

 

My life has been an extraordinary adventure, often consisting of peaks and troughs with not a lot of space in between.

For me, art reaches the places that words can't and helps me make sense of a bumpy ride.

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I will make art for as long as I am capable.

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Leon Fernandes