Jake Fernandez – Cover Artist
By Emma Taylor
Whether in life or art, Jake Fernandez has never chosen the conventional path. A self-identifying contrarian, the Cuban-American artist has built a career by rejecting the predictable, resisting direction, and creating a body of work wholly singular—untethered from time, commerce, or consensus. His art emerges from a place where instinct outruns expectation, and the only standards that matter are the integrity of vision and process.
Fernandez was born in Havana, Cuba, in the early 1950s to a family he describes with a laugh as “a collection of eccentrics—from the mildly eccentric to completely off their rocker!” Artistic influence came early, and music was central from the start. His first drawing—a portrait of Elvis—was sketched to one-up a musician friend’s rendering of the Pope. The scene feels telling, as the interplay between music and visual art would go on to shape Fernandez’s style, inspiration, and process throughout his career.
At 9, he and his family immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Miami. There, he explored art through paint-by-number kits—an early crash course in oils that preceded more formal instruction. By age 11 or 12, he’d met a University of Miami art professor who “took a shining” to his talent and began teaching him. Though he couldn’t officially enroll—“they said I couldn’t take classes at my age because of the nude models,” he recalls—the training was rigorous and academic, laying the foundation that would later propel him into college-level art with confidence well beyond his years.
After earning a BFA from the University of Florida and an MFA from the University of South Florida, Fernandez set his sights on New York. First, though, he spent a year building a studio with friends on the edge of the Ocala National Forest—envisioning it as a retreat if things didn’t pan out. “I worked for a year building the place, and then I lived in the place for about two weeks, since I ran out of money,” he said. “So, I moved to New York with no money. Because that’s what you want to do—you want to move to New York with no money, right?”
Fernandez put his last hundred dollars in his wallet and pointed his tiny Chevy pickup toward the city. Though New York ran on subway rails and shoe leather, the Floridian couldn’t disabuse himself of the idea that a vehicle was essential. The truck proved useful—he placed a classified ad in the Village Voice offering moving services, routed calls to his brother’s number, and hustled jobs wherever he could. It wasn’t glamorous, but between the modest income and his younger brother’s steady advice—“don’t panic”—he was making it work.
Before the rise of the $12 latte and Giuliani’s cleanup campaign, 1980s New York was a haven for struggling artists translating la vie bohème into works that might land above a Park Avenue mantel. Polished gallerists and uptown collectors were turning their attention downtown, reframing the raw energy of graffiti and alleyway canvases for pristine white gallery walls.
Fernandez arrived early in the decade, freewheeling with the best of them—creating in an asbestos-ridden basement on Bond Street, squatting in lofts with empty fridges and full sketchbooks. But while he embraced the beatnik lifestyle of his peers, his art took a different path. Neo-expressionism and punk street art were the currency of the moment, and every dealer was hunting for the next Basquiat. Fernandez wasn’t interested. “My work was more analytical—almost geometric—and full of contradictions,” he says. “It wasn’t easy to market, and I didn’t want to be pigeonholed. I don’t blame the gallerists—they wanted something consistent. But I always put the work first. Creating for them just makes it a job, and there’s always a way to make money.”
His refusal to dilute his vision in pursuit of sales or fame didn’t hinder his career—it defined it. Over time, his dedication to integrity over marketability became not a liability, but an asset. He carved out a place in the art world on his own terms, earning acclaim from collectors, critics, and peers alike. Unconcerned with clocks or critics, Fernandez has built a body of work that answers to no one—and in doing so, speaks louder than most.
With a portfolio spanning painting, drawing, collage, and large-scale installations, Fernandez takes time to indulge his curiosities. One of his most enduring undertakings began more than -40 years ago, sparked by a visit to The Met Cloisters. In one of its enclosed medieval gardens, he found a setting that merged architecture, history, and living plants—a template he’s returned to again and again to test perspective, refine mark-making, and explore evolving techniques.
The project continues to inspire his other work, including his current commission in Santa Monica: a series of tapestries for a chapel designed by Frank Gehry at Saint Monica Church. He’s been developing them for more than a decade, part of what critics now call “durational art”—pieces that unfold over years, even decades.
Much of his process draws from music rather than other visual artists. Surrounded almost exclusively by musician friends, Fernandez adopted their method of layering and recording in tracks—stripping his work to bare textures, then gradually building form and color in a deliberate, almost rhythmic evolution.
He’s never been concerned with efficiency or producing on someone else’s timetable, and his work reflects that freedom. As he puts it cheekily, “So you can see how my relation to time passing—or efficiency—is non-existent. I never worry about that. I think I’m going to live forever.”
Fernandez lives in Bradenton with his wife, fellow artist Linda Chapman. The two travel to New York several times a year for business, and his work can be viewed at www.jakefernandez.com.
