Michael Fernandes

Michael Fernandes (born in 1944) is a Canadian experimental artist and art educator based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His work uses familiar, even banal materials to ask the viewer to confront the boundary between daily life and art.

Early life Fernandes was born in Trinidad. He emigrated to Canada to study at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in the 1963. By 1973, Fernandes moved to Halifax to teach at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.

Fluxus suggested that everyday life should not be excluded from art. It encouraged a direct approach to creating work using the minimum amount of means required. Fernandes extends this approach to use everyday objects and experiences to provoke the viewer to make connections between the installation/performance and the spaces of the viewer's own life. The challenge to the viewer is to return from Fernandes' work to experience the artistic moment in the viewer's own life.

Awards Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts (2020)