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ARTIST PROFILE: EMMA “BUG“ FERNANDEZ

The first time I met Emma/ Bug, her hair was pink and in pig tails and she was wearing a really good outfit that I don’t remember. She had come from LA to showcase work at a DIY art show I was curating at a dance studio in Thousand Oaks. I remember seeing her tape photos she took of her friend Lily on top of the photos that were lining the dance studio wall. They were class photos of my dance friends. I thought it was hilarious and amazing.

Later on in the night, I would sporadically see Emma’s pink hair flailing in the mosh pit.

Now when I think of Emma, I think of color. She wears vibrant clothes, over the past few years I’ve seen her hair dyed brown, pink, green, and red, and she has a really warm, calm energy about her that feels a bit like falling asleep in the sun. I always thought Emma was too cool for me -even after meeting her and working with her on a few creative projects, I’m still kinda convinced she is. But Emma is wildly humble- a bit shy to people just meeting her- and extremely radiant. She is unafraid to explore, to make art that isn’t completely serious. She embraces silliness and playfulness while still maintaining an artistic maturity. As a curator, I was drawn to her composition and use of color; I felt like she captured things the way that I saw them. In my head, things tend to look a lot more saturated than they actually are (I’m a romanticizer) and I lauded her for that. Whether she saw things that way too or it was just her style of art, I felt seen. I felt like my perception of youth was being documented by someone I barely knew and I was very grateful.

Emma is one of the few artists I know who uses her iPhone as one of her primary mediums in photography. Her iPhone photos tend to be blurry, slightly soft, and teaming with energy. In her photos, it seems like she is always moving, always dancing, always playing an “adult“ version of dress-up. She is able to capture many different moods because she isn’t tied to just one style. Her nude self-portraits, which slightly surprised me at first, reminded me just how multiplicited she is. The self-portraits are gripping, realistic glimpses into her reality. Along with her final digitally illustrated self-portrait, they are moments of trust.