Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Here’s an imaginative trompe l’oeil, art that gives the illusion of a welcome at the border.

Jude Joffe-Block writes at Fronteras, “Artist Ana Teresa Fernandez is attempting to paint a stretch of the border fence in Nogales, Sonora, so it looks like it is no longer there. … The project is an expansion of an earlier installation Fernandez did on the Tijuana border fence.

“Fernandez was born in Mexico, moved to San Diego as a child, and grew up going back and forth between the two countries. She heard story after story of migrants who lost their lives trying to cross the border, and of families divided by it. …

“In 2011, Fernandez went to Tijuana from her home in San Francisco with a plan to paint the fence.

“ ‘I just had this epiphany, of like, you know I can bring the sky down and erase it, just using paint and painting it sky blue,’ Fernandez said.

“She picked a stretch of the fence on the beach on the Mexican side, climbed up a ladder, and began to paint. …

“Fernandez carefully chose a shade of blue that would make it look like the fence disappeared into the sky and the Pacific Ocean behind it.

“The illusion worked. As she was finishing up a jogger came running up excitedly.

“ ‘And this runner was all sweaty,’ Fernandez remembered. ‘He was like, “I get it! I get it!” I looked down from the ladder, and I was like,”Excuse me sir, what do you get?” And he was like, “It looks like it is gone from far away!” ‘…

“Fernandez says her goal is to inspire people to imagine what if the fence really did come down.”

More here at WBUR, where you also can listen to the story.

Photo: Ana Teresa Fernandez
Ana Teresa Fernandez’s art installation on the border fence in Tijuana.