Maria Fernanda Cardoso

Maria Fernanda Cardoso is an international artist, born in Colombia, who has lived and worked in Sydney since 1995. Graduating from Yale University with a Masters degree in Sculpture and Installation in 1990, she is well known for her unconventional use of materials and the use of animals as inspiration. Cardoso exhibits widely in major museums and galleries in the US, Latin America, Australia and Europe.

Cardoso's practice 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, the Centro Reina Sofia in Madrid and represented Colombia at the 2003 Venice Biennale.

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).