Made In L.A. is coming to the Hammer, Barnsdall Park, LAXART, and billboards around town on June 2 and will showcase sixty emerging, under-recognized Los Angeles artists–one of which will be voted to win a $100,000 prize. In order to help you make an educated vote this summer, we’re counting down to Made In L.A. by showcasing each artist participating in the biennial.

Patricia Fernández is a visual artist dealing with history–specifically her personal and familial history, which she explores, tries to explain, and honors through art making.

Patricia’s work manifests itself as paintings, drawings, and objects, typically fashioned out of wood. “Applying an archeological approach to the family archive, my work questions the expectations of inherited history and the inaccuracy of memory,” she says in her statement, which was shared last year during her time as a California Community Fellowship Brody Fellow. This manifestation of work comes in various forms, some small and almost overlooked to expansive and taking up an entire room. In 2008, Patricia revisited everywhere she lived in Los Angeles (and surrounding areas) with Saunterer, Sans Terre, Saint Terre, where she left objects she made as close as possible to the specific site where she previously inhabited. Facsimiles in 2010 saw her creating various objects–a table, boxes, etc.–from a series of instructions left to her by her grandfather, “like the copier of the copier of the copier, ad infinitum.”

Most recently, Patricia raised funds to create A Record Of Succession, which carries on her exploration and process to 2012 and beyond her family. The work stems from a collection her grandmother kept of buttons that were displaced from various articles of clothing. Patricia continued to collect buttons herself and started a correspondence with five women whose history–along with her grandparents and family–would be shared through a labor intensive expression: a seven by ten food walnut paneling with half inch by half inch square carvings (X marks)–a mark her grandfather would make–which will house objects involved in history.

We’re intrigued by Patricia’s work as it’s super interesting although a little dense in that there is so much history to be learned surrounding her work. We imagine that the piece she brings will be an immersive and detailed series of beautiful wood objects that tie the past to the present, potentially again dipping into her Los Angeles history again.