Maria Fernanda Cardoso blends nature, art, science, and technology to transform unconventional materials into awe-inspiring installations, sculptures, performances and videos. Her beautiful work invites us to experience the wonders of nature.
Red Pine (Akamatsu) Pinus densiflora
270 × 700 × 10 cm
Eucalyptus coronata gumnuts and seeds, sand, rubber, monster clay and metal
Eucalyptus erythrocorys gumnuts, rubber, sand and metal
Corymbia calophylla gumnuts, rubber, sand and metal
dimensions vary
Eucalyptus tetraptera gumnuts
61.5 × 61.5 cm
Eucalyptus coronata gumnuts and metal on board
121.5 x 121.5 cm
Corymbia deserticola gumnuts, rubber, sand and metal
13 cm
16 cm
30 cm
335 square metres
Robotic milling on sandstone hand finished
Robotic milling on sandstone hand finished
50 × 110 × 90 cm
Coronata gumnuts and metal pins mounted directly on wall
250 × 580 cm
Digital print on glossy paper. Acrylic face mounted on 2 mm aluminium backing
90.5 × 104.5 cm
Digital print on glossy paper. Acrylic face mounted on 2 mm aluminium backing
45 × 30 cm
resin, glass, metal.
28 × 6 × 6 cm
emu feathers, fibreglass netting
130 × 90 × 10 cm
Emu feathers, fibreglass netting, impasto, steel, fabric, glue, metal
140 × 105 cm
Emu feathers, fibreglass netting
245 × 14 cm
Archival pigment print on 300 gr cotton rag paper
70 × 50 cm
pigment print on premium photo paper 300 gr._focus stacked from 825 source images 152.4 × 205 cm
print size 126.4 × 192.5 cm
deep focus microscopy, pigment print on premium photo paper
152 × 152 × 4 cm
preserved starfish, galvanised steel wire
dimensions variable
By submitting this form, you consent to receive messages from Sullivan + Strumpf. Message frequency varies. You can unsubscribe at any time by replying STOP or clicking the unsubscribe link (where available) in one of our messages.
Maria Fernanda Cardoso blends nature, art, science, and technology to transform unconventional materials into awe-inspiring installations, sculptures, performances and videos. Her beautiful work invites us to experience the wonders of nature.
She is a recipient of the prestigious Creative Australia Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts, has exhibited at New York MoMA, the Centre Pompidou, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, PS1, Fundacion La Caixa in Barcelona, the DAROS Foundation in Zurich, and the Centro Reina Sofia in Madrid.
While never limited by materials or methods, her curiosity about worlds-within-worlds permeates everything she does. In the early 1980s, following in the footsteps of her accomplished architect parents, Cardoso studied architecture and visual arts at the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. In 1987, she moved to the USA where she graduated with a Masters degree in sculpture at Yale University, having been awarded a full scholarship.
One of her most fabled projects is The Cardoso Flea Circus (1994-2000), a performance piece featuring real live fleas. Over the course of a six-year period, Cardoso trained fleas to perform surprising feats such as walking on tightropes, pulling chariots, jumping through hoops and dancing tango. The Circus toured internationally at venues including the Sydney Opera House, the Centre Pompidou, the Arts Festival Atlanta, the Fabric Workshop and Museum (Philadelphia), and the San Francisco Exploratorium. This work, including a series of videos made in collaboration with Ross Rudesch Harley, is now part of Tate Modern’s permanent collection.
In 2000, the Museum of Modern Art in New York commissioned her to create a major new installation featuring 36,000 plastic lilies along a 125-foot-long wall. The permanent beauty of the plastic flowers, which imitated the architecture of old cemeteries in Colombia, expressed a mourning for lives lost during the rampant violence suffered in her country of birth.
In 2003, she represented Colombia at the Venice Biennale, exhibiting a large installation of starfish woven together into a submarine landscape called Woven Water. In that same year she had a major solo show, Zoomorphia, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
Throughout her career, Cardoso has continued to explore nature and its links to culture and science. In 2012 she completed her PhD at the University of Sydney’s College of the Arts. Her research on the aesthetics of reproductive morphology—likely to be one of the more unusual studies to be presented in the hallowed halls of academia—culminated in the Museum of Copulatory Organs (MoCO).
At MoCo, exhibited at Cockatoo Island as part of the 18th Biennale of Sydney, visitors encountered animal genitalia and sexual selection through three-dimensional models in glass, bronze and 3D printing, videos, drawings and electron-microscopy scans, all displayed in museum cases.
Over the years she has worked on different public art projects, using large-scale to emphasise the wonders of nature, particularly of the small. In 2022 she completed Ripples and Droplets (2022), a 335 square metres mural inspired by the natural movement of water. Integrated into Castle Residencies mixed development, the mural stands 11 stories high and is believed to be the largest public artwork by an Australian artist in the Sydney CBD.
Cardoso has lived and worked in Sydney since 1997.
Sullivan+Strumpf acknowledge the Indigenous People of this land, the traditional custodians on whose Country we work, live and learn. We pay respect to Elders, past and present, and recognise their continued connection to culture, land, waters and community.