Graffiti artist Dex Fernandez is based in Caloocan, the Philippines. He is known for his iconic creation Garapata, and his psychedelic compositions that draw from street art, graphic design, and surrealist painting. Fernandez employs a range of techniques, from collage to freehand drawing and photography, to create layered portraits and expansive murals that challenge the notions of high and low art.
Read MoreDex Fernandez studied Fine Art and Advertising at the Technological University of the Philippines before beginning to paint in 2007. His early Pop Surrealist artworks were influenced by Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Salvador Dalí, as well as the Expressionist works of Paul Klee. He took to graffiti under the influence of the Pilipinas Street Plan—a collective of street artists founded in 2006 that sought to bring ephemeral forms of art to the urban landscape.
In the realm of street art, Fernandez first experimented with sticker art and, later, incorporated his experience of mural painting from his graphic arts background. The result is a labour-intensive process that collages a range of materials, from archival photography to tattoos, religious icons, illustrations, and adult magazines—an approach that has often courted controversy.
Artworks such as Good Morning HOBOS (2015) and Entrap (2015) are typical of Fernandez's fantastically chaotic oeuvre. Digital photograph of friends and colleagues are overlaid with intricate, neon-painted designs that transform the figures into garish masks or caricatures. Of his use of photography, Fernandez states, 'Picture chooses me and I am the medium from which the hidden picture is dissected... As much as possible, I draw pictures based on my feelings.'
Dex Fernandez's popular Garapata is a six-legged character that he developed while at art school, named after the parasite that infested his childhood pet dog and left a lasting impression on the artist. Garapata became the subject of sticker art and mural works that have taken over buildings and streetscapes around the world. VUVU and vuvu (2018) is his largest mural, and is a tribute to the indigenous Paiwan tribe in Taitung, Taiwan.
Fernandez has completed several international residencies, including at the Fine Art Work Centre in Provincetown, Massachusetts; Ping Pong Art Space, Taipei; and Art Center Ongoing, Tokyo. His work has been exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and the Singapore Art Museum, amongst other locations.
Amy Weng | Ocula | 2020
