SERGIO HERNÁNDEZ

Recent Paintings

April 29 - June 4, 1999
Artist's reception: Thursday, April 29, 6-8 p.m.

Associated American Artists is pleased to present Sergio Hernandez' premier solo exhibition in New York which consists of twelve recent paintings. In the company of international re-known artists from Mexico as Tamayo and Toledo, Hernandez' work has prominently emerged in two important group exhibitions at the gallery within the past two years. These shows, Self-Portrait : Mexico (1997) and Mexico : Reconfigured (1998) reflect Hernandez' established distinction in contemporary Mexican art. Hernandez had a solo museum retrospective at the Kunstverein Braunschweig in Germany which represented a career spanning fifteen years in 1998. This upcoming December, both the Museo de Arte Moderno and the Museo Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City will present one-person exhibitions of his work. With great enthusiasm, we present this fascinating and important body of twelve paintings as the artist summons us to his domain of a fantastic and ethereal world.

Born in Huajuapan de Leon, Oaxaca, Mexico in 1957, Hernandez' vision, inspired by mythology, magic, and spirituality, bears its roots from his rich Oaxacan heritage. Physical and psychological significance is expressed through his work, not only pictorially, but through the painterly materials he selects. He primarily works on linen, papyrus paper or other unusual types of paper. His paint is a mixture of pigmented oil and sand. He applies this mixture onto his canvas, building areas of denser color and texture. The imagery is then "engraved" and more textured pigment may be applied. The gritty mixture enables Hernandez to create a volumetric composition that imposes physicality but at the same time appears diffuse. Form, color and texture create the artist's compositional, spatial and atmospheric resolve.

The inhabitance of strange personages and creatures particularly demand our attention. Hernandez takes us into unknown places, where, stemming deep within his psyche, these beings spring to life and communicate messages that weave throughout his work. The dichotomy between life and death recurs in Hernandez' imagery. In the diptych, El Comecometas (The Comet Eater), 1999 ( 51 1/4 x 79 1/8 in.), two bat-like creatures imbibed with human form are symmetrically suspended on each panel of the painting. The only place they touch is through the tips of their winged hands. There is both an erotic and menacing undertone to the grouping of these creatures. Vampire bats sustain themselves on the blood of their prey. The image depicts these creatures baring teeth as if engaged in a sadomasochistic rite. Comets pierce their bodies - the dark-headed creature bearing its prize in its clenched teeth seemingly freshly drawn from its partner's flesh. Amorous encounter and cannibalistic act become one. Hernandez' metaphor reveals that loving union ironically sustains life and destroys it.

El Nacimiento de la Muerte (The Birth of Death), 1999 (39 1/4 x 31 1/2 in.), is reminiscent of a detail from a work in Hernandez' El Circo series of last year. It thematically reflects the duality between passion/peril, aggression/passivity, creation/destruction, and birth/death. This image depicts a female with skeletal facial features, her hair rendered by long, violent scratches, splaying her legs over an inverted skeletal personage reaching towards its genitals.

The nebulous area between their legs spawn a skull-like apparition. The hollow, primal "scream" of the woman is echoed by the apparition to which she gives birth. The physical qualities of the female and the skull are nearly dissolved in space whereas the skeleton's limbs and innards are clearly delineated. Mass and weightlessness, tension and inertia elicits a dynamic interplay within the pictorial space. However, we are left unsure as to what is actually occurring before us. We are certain that the act of giving birth is happening, yet it is eerily passive and silent. Although Hernandez tempts us into believing the living is propagating death, we are not certain what to feel. What do we witness from the emotive elements of the painting? Is it surprise, pain, ecstasy or terror? Hernandez beckons us to feel dislodged and uncomfortable and to draw conclusions from our own psyches.
  

Gallery contact: Lisa Hagani
email: aaa@agrp.com
  

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