Lehmann Maupin announces Caribbean Cosmos, an exhibition of new work by New York-based artist Teresita Fernández. Known for her expansive practice characterized by an interest in materiality, conceptual wayfinding, and reflective engagement, Fernández creates immersive work that critically rethinks landscape and place. Incorporating diverse historical and cultural references, Fernández challenges entrenched spatial frameworks and poetically exposes the history of colonization and the inherent violence embedded in how we imagine and define both land and location. On view at Lehmann Maupin London from September 14–November 5, 2022, Caribbean Cosmos includes a charcoal sculpture, a large-scale, glazed ceramic panel, and a new series of seascape dissolves rendered on copper.

In Caribbean Cosmos, Fernández presents a nuanced understanding of the Caribbean, looking beyond dominant, continental narratives and instead considering the region as emblematic of an expansive, decentralized physical geography, and a global, diasporic state of mind. Using this dispersed lens, she unravels dynamic strands of rhizomatic connection, sprawling landscapes, and a metaphysical understanding of the natural world. Fernández uses earthly elements—including fired clay, etched and polished copper, and solid charcoal made from burned trees—to summon a churning material world in the ever-changing flux of decay, evolution, and renewal. In Caribbean Cosmos Fernández infuses matter with meaning, achieving a type of alchemy in the transformation of her raw materials.