Impressed by the personality, originality and impeccable execution of his
earliest works as a child in Buenos Aires, FERNANDO CANOVAS (Argentina, 1960)
was encouraged by his teachers to further his artistic studies in Europe or the
United States. Following his arrival at L’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, Canovas
began to win accolades. He was chosen from among hundreds of applicants to
study with Pierre Alechinsky and was also chosen as a student by Roberto
Matta.
Traveling constantly between the second and three- dimensional world,
Canovas ́s painting shows a deep concern about space and time, themes that
remain central in his work despite his radical changes of style and media at the
beginning of every new series. There is also a permanent struggle between
flatness and volume, a tension that is almost programmatic in his production.
His obsessive interest to go beyond two dimensions is reflected at two distinct
levels. On the one hand, from his early paintings that depict cell-like
constructions to his recent works that juxtapose geometric structures and
figures of receptacles, perspective is fundamental. On the other hand, this
desire by the artist to suggest an illusion of depth is repeated and enhanced by
the operations undertaken outside the picture. These consist of a series of
dialogic games (which sometimes include installations) between the painted
image and something outside it: stretchers resting on stretchers, pieces of
wood leaning against the canvas, shelves resting on the canvas, frames and
metal extensions— all of which extend the picture into space.
He has exhibited widely throughout Europe. In 1997, the National Museum of
Fine Arts in Buenos Aires inaugurated a large-scale chronological retrospective
exhibit of the last thirteen years of his work. Between 1998 and 2000, this
exhibition was also shown at the Memorial Museum of Latin America of Sao
Paolo (Brazil), Museum of the City (Valencia, Spain), and at the House of Culture
of Namur, Belgium. In 2007, the IVAM, the Valencian Institute of Modern Art,
hosted a large-scale retrospective exhibit of his work. He currently lives
between Ibiza and New York.