Photo credit: Jason Sullivan

On view October 17, 2026–January 9, 2027 

Opening Reception: Friday, October 16, 5:30 PM–7:30 PM

Artist Talk: Friday, October 16, 5:30 PM

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 experience of moving between places as a journey toward the self, where memory and feeling continually shape a place to belong. 

For this exhibition, Fernández expands beyond personal experience into collective awareness through two archives she has created: Archivo de Sentires (Archive of Feelings) and Archivo de Sombras (Archive of Shadows). The Archivo de Sentires draws on responses to seven questions posed to women of different ages living around the globe. These responses have been translated into paintings, with a palette drawn from every color named in the archive. The Archivo de Sombras comprises photographs of each woman’s sun-cast shadow, which act as source materials for the paintings. In the resulting works, the shadows appear as silhouettes, at times merging with Fernández’s own body to mark 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. Double-sided paintings hover and swirl in the gallery, inviting viewers to navigate works as they become portals for transformation and expansion.