Mira Fernández was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, (also known in the art field as Mira Valencia, due to her ex-husband’s last name) and has lived mostly in Panama since 1999. She studied Graphic Design and Industrial Design in her native country and for a decade, worked as an Art Director for advertising agencies and for UNICEF. Later, she studied at The Arts Students League of New York and one-on-one with New York-based painter Pat Lipsky. Her professional activities, family, studies, and a certain sense of adventure, have led her to live in Panama, Brazil, Portugal, the United States, and Israel.
While keeping activities as a graphic designer, since the early 2000s, Mira began to get involved in visual arts and has been devoting herself to art for more than two decades – until now part-time, since she was raising three children that are now young adults.
Mira has participated on several occasions in the Panama Art Biennial and in the Central American Isthmus Biennial, as well as in various contemporary art exhibitions in Panama, the Central America area, and Argentina. Her work has included paintings, objects, installations, photographs, paintings, digital paintings, and interventions in private and urban spaces – some of them are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Panama (MAC) and in private collections, such as the of the National Brewery of Panama (today Sab-Miller) and the Fernández-Pirla Foundation.
Currently working on projects that question the creation of more material oeuvre on a planet saturated and polluted by excessive human production, Mira is at a phase of study, research, and experimentation on the possibilities that have to do with the dematerialization of art and non-traditional art forms that comment on certain personal concerns and social issues she is interested.
Mira splits her time between Panama, Argentina, Israel, and the USA.