KAIZEN, Japanese term for the practice of continuous improvement.

Kaizen consists in digital collages mostly done between 2004 and 2008. They are now released in a publication divided into three volumes. Each volume has 10 works each, in individual sheets 30 x 30cm.

Cover, Kaizen Vol1

L M FERNANDES: SAATCHI ONLINE CRITIC'S CHOICE BY ANGELA ROBERTS

L.M. Fernandes' work makes use of naïf line drawings and digitally enhanced mirror images to create pictures that look like kaleidoscopic hallucinations. The effect can be both superficially charming and deliberately evasive. The work often seems to draw upon the recent trend in art that recalls a whimsical, childlike world where the most seemingly innocent and familiar image, scrawled by a childish hand, can mask adult questions. Whether of not Fernandes' work intends to pose similarly complicated questions is a matter of debate. For the present the work seems to draw heavily (forgive the pun) on the graphic illustrator's trademark concern with surface and depth. Fernandes shows us a surface of reflections and repetitions and asks the viewer to pick out the hand drawn and hand collaged from the digitally reproduced. The computer may have created the fine detail but its effect is no less strange when juxtaposed with mirror images. As if to ground these images in reality, Fernandes introduces into these graphic hallucinations recognizable figures, familiar animals, fruits and flowers. However, the faceless construction worker and housekeeper become enigmas when set in a mandorla of flying hearts and half-eaten apples. Likewise the recurrent rhinoceros and sunflower motifs contribute to a surreal world where everything is familiar but nothing quite fits.

Angela Roberts

Angela Roberts is a writer currently completing research toward a PhD at Queen's University, Ontario. She is art editor of Vancouver-based art-and-design magazine Butter and has written for ArtReview.

font: http://magazine.saatchionline.com/online-top-10/l_m_fernandes_saatchi_online_c

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