LAGUNA BEACH, CALIF.- Laguna Art Museum will present its 13th annual Art + Nature, an annual event celebrating the dynamic exchange between artistic expression and environmental awareness. The highly anticipated event is the museum’s largest initiative of the year, featuring immersive installations on Laguna’s Main Beach that bring together thousands of participants to cultivate a love of nature, raise environmental awareness and discover cross-sections between science and the arts. The festivities beginning the week of November 1 are the kick off to Laguna Art Museum’s Art + Nature period that continues through February 2026 with two indoor exhibitions and engaging public programs.
This year’s Art + Nature commissioned artist is Ana Teresa Fernández, a San Francisco–based, Mexico-born artist whose practice challenges boundaries both literal and conceptual. Fernández is internationally known for site-responsive works that weave together themes of climate, culture, identity and collective action. Her project for Art + Nature, titled SOS is a multi-dimensional project incorporating sculpture, performance and photography that will bring a dynamic and community-focused approach to Art + Nature 2025.
Focusing on our oceans’ dire need for help, Fernández translates the international distress signal SOS into Save our Seas, as both a cry and a call to action. From November 6 - 10, Fernández’s SOS will unfold in phases, culminating in a collective activation involving 800 circular mirrors. The sculptural installation, An Ocean in a Drop, will invite exploration on Main Beach while the artist herself will engage visitors with a photography station named We Are Water, where visitors can pose with Fernández’s artwork that reflects the ocean.
“Selecting the commissioned artist for Art + Nature is always a meaningful challenge. It is a moment to invite audiences to engage deeply with pressing global issues through the lens of creativity,” said Julie Perlin Lee, Executive Director of Laguna Art Museum. “Ana Teresa Fernández’s work is bold, poetic and urgent. SOS will create space for contemplation while reminding us that change begins with individual and collective action.”
In addition to SOS, Art + Nature 2025 includes two indoor exhibitions. The first, Silence and Solitude: Conrad Buff and the Landscapes of the American Southwest, will be on view from September 20, 2025, through January 25, 2026. This landmark exhibition, curated by Dr. Deborah Solon, marks the first major museum exhibition dedicated to modernist painter Conrad Buff. Through evocative depictions of the American West, Buff forged a unique vision that contributed to California’s artistic identity in the 20th century.
The second exhibition, Eternal Construction: Photographic Perspectives on Southern California’s Built Environment, will be on view from September 20, 2025 through January 5, 2026. This exhibition brings together artists from Laguna Art Museum’s permanent collection who have engaged deeply with themes of urbanization, infrastructure, environmental transformation and conceptual interpretations of space. Rather than presenting a wide survey, this exhibition offers an in-depth exploration of artists with multiple works in the collection, allowing for a richer, more layered engagement with their investigations of land-use and development.
The selected artists form a complex dialogue about the shifting nature of the built environment, with some taking a documentary approach, while others deconstruct, abstract or intervene in the spaces they depict. Through stark realism, conceptual play and aesthetic manipulation, these artists reveal the ever-evolving story of Southern California’s relationship with land.
Art + Nature will feature a range of events and activities November 1 - 10, including community art projects, performances and the First Thursdays Artwalk. All activities are designed to foster engagement and appreciation of art and nature. Programming highlights include a volunteer-driven activation on Sunday, November 9, where 800 participants will use Fernández’s mirrored artwork to form shapes along Main Beach, the return of Laguna Art Museum’s popular Upcycled Couture Fashion show to kick off the celebration on Saturday, November 1 and the Art + Nature Community Block Party on Sunday, November 2.
This year, for the first time in its history, Laguna Art Museum will offer free general admission for the entire month of November. This expanded access, made possible by the generous support of the Vice Chair of the OC Board of Supervisors, Katrina Foley, ensures that more Orange County residents and visitors can experience the transformative power of Art + Nature.
"For Laguna Beach, artistic expression is the name of the game. Now, for the first time in the Laguna Art Museum’s more than 100-year history, all admissions will be free for the month of November because of my office’s $50,000 grant," said Vice Chair Foley. "The grant in part funds the Museum’s 13th annual Art + Nature program which runs from November 6-10, connecting more than 20,000 members of the public with thought provoking art installations along Main Beach. I look forward to thousands of residents and visitors enjoying this one-of-a-kind – and free – visual experience!”
Ana Teresa Fernández - Ana Teresa Fernández is an artist of fluencies. A student of linguistics, she speaks five languages. An artist of border erasure, she elevates the intersectionality of place, person and politics to create a common human vernacular. Time-based actions and social gestures are her syntax. Land, history, gender, climate and culture are her subjects. Performance, video, photography, painting and sculpture become her dynamic tools of grammar. Through enacted narratives, she reveals all that too often gets lost in translation, becoming the literal embodiment of the stories that divide but also bind us as human beings sharing a planet of great fragility and beauty. Asked to characterize her work, Fernandez gives it the novel label Magical Non-fiction, explaining: “Where unimaginable conditions are the reality, I seek to portray dreamscapes of what’s possible. The courage to transform is up to us.”
Born in Tampico, Mexico, Fernandez grew up in California and makes her home in San Francisco. She has created residencies and public work in Haiti, Brazil, Spain, South Africa, Cuba, Mexico & throughout the United States. Major public projects include On The Horizon, which was featured in the 2021 Lands End exhibition, organized by the FOR-SITE Foundation. In one highly visible work, she erased the border between Tijuana & San Diego by painting a portion sky blue while wearing a tango dress and heels to create an illusion of a hole on the wall from afar.
