“A grand mixture of form, content, and materials. Fernando Mastrangelo’s work creates a universe in which landscapes, textures, and the human condition are layered and interconnected. Beautiful and complex, the cast sculptural objects entwine art and design.” Fernando has always been inspired by his surroundings — the people, the places, the politics. As a child, he thought he might become a doctor or a martial artist. In his early teenage years, he consumed comics and began drawing portraits. His formative years were spent in Mexico and Argentina, where the sweeping landscapes of Monterrey and Buenos Aires seeped into his identity. While in Mexico, he decided to apply to art school. Fernando initially focused on painting and video making in Seattle, but once he encountered sculpture, there was no looking back. Early abstract works would later imbue the work he does today. They provided a momentum that eventually brought him to the East Coast for his MFA. In kismet moments and hard work in New York, Fernando landed a job with the artist he admired most, Matthew Barney and also his first big solo exhibition entitled “malicia.” The time spent in Barney’s studio and the sale of his first major sculpture using sugar propelled the start of his own studio and helped inform how it would run. This particular work with a granular material immediately became the foundation for Fernando’s entire practice. For the next few years, Fernando created works with strong ties to controversy and politics, particularly embedded with his associations with Latin American culture. From sugar to corn like a modernization of the Aztec calendar from white corn and cornmeal his material explorations also included human ash, gunpowder, an illicit drug, concrete, salt, and sand. The granules and powders echoed history and experience. A 2012 commission by Sean Parker to create his largest work to date fueled the studio to grow even further and moved the work back toward his early abstractions. The exploration of furniture would become AMMA Studio, then MMATERIAL, and now, in its final iteration: FM/S. FM/S is now a host for experimentation without boundaries. With painting, sculpture, furniture, architecture, and interiors, the self-sustaining studio still maintains an essential core: form + content + materials. What each piece becomes is informed by what it comes from and his team of talented humans working in wood and metal, casting and finishing, producing and fabricating, help carry out Fernando’s visions. The craft and materials are constantly pushed to new levels. The ethereal suite of furniture, most influenced these days by specific exotic landscapes, will inspire a moment in nature, the greatest sculptor of all. Rough and refined, intricate and immense, formal and functional.