SAN ANTONIO, TX.- Ruby City announced the acquisition of Los Valles, an oil on panel painting by artist Ana Fernandez by the Linda Pace Foundation for their permanent collection. The large-scale work depicts an evening scene of people congregating at a fruteria, a popular food stand and community gathering spot. Painting in the realist tradition, Fernandez attempts to capture the cultural, psychological and spiritual nuances found in seemingly ordinary urban landscapes, particularly those found in Latino and Hispanic communities.

“My painting of the Los Valles fruit stand is a portrait of what free enterprise looks like in Latino communities of South Texas today,” says Fernandez. “It stands as a cultural symbol of entrepreneurship within the community, and provides a meditation on the very nature of labor and work itself.”

Los Valles is a fitting addition to the Linda Pace Collection. The collection is exhibited at Ruby City, and through loans to other arts institutions around the world. The painting will complement works by Margarita Cabrera, Rufino Tamayo, Surasi Kusolwong, Alejandro Diaz and others whose oeuvre speaks to notions of identity, community hierarchies and quotidian life.

Los Valles will be included in an exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), Houston, TX titled, Right Here, Right Now: San Antonio. The exhibition opens April 27, 2018 and will be on view through August 5, 2018. The exhibition is third in an ongoing series designed to explore our culturally rich creative communities and region. The exhibition features 19 San Antonio-based artists and artist collaboratives and is organized by Curator Dean Daderko with the assistance of Exhibitions Manager & Assistant Curator Patricia Restrepo. Fernandez will speak about her work at CAMH on Saturday May 19, 2018 at 2pm.

Fernandez holds a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from UCLA. She has exhibited at the Southwest School of Art, Institute of Texas Cultures, McNay Art Museum, Women & Their Work Gallery, Guadalupe Cultural Arts, Blue Star Contemporary and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, with archives being collected by the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin. Ana is a recipient of both the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant in 2017 and an Artpace Artist in Residence. She has upcoming solo exhibitions at the Brownsville Museum of Art and Cinnabar Art Gallery, which represents her.