Brendan Fernandes

Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979, Nairobi, Kenya) is an internationally recognized Canadian artist  working at the intersection of dance and visual arts. Currently based out of Chicago, Fernandes’s projects address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest and other forms of collective  movement. Always looking to create new spaces and new forms of agency, Fernandes’s projects  take on hybrid forms: part Ballet, part queer dance party, part political protest...always rooted in  collaboration and fostering solidarity. Brendan is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study  Program (2007) and a recipient of a Robert Rauschenberg Fellowship (2014). In 2010, he was  shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award, and is the recipient of a prestigious 2017 Canada Council  New Chapters grant. Brendan is also the recipient of the Platform Award (2024), the Artadia Award (2019), a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2020) and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant (2019). His  projects have shown at the 2019 Whitney Biennial (New York); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); the Museum of Modern Art (New York); The Getty Museum (Los Angeles);  the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa); MAC (Montreal); among a great many others. He is  currently Associate Professor in the Department of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University and is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago and Susan Inglett Gallery in New York. Recent and upcoming projects include performances and solo presentations at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, MO; The MCA Denver, Denver, Colorado; The Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, PA; and Prospect 6, New Orleans, LO.

The artist is co-represented by Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago and Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC.