Sergio Hernandez
Huajuapan de Leon, Oaxaca, 1957 -
Available Works
Photo Gallery
Sergio Hernandez - BIOGRAPHY
Sergio Hernandez was born in the town of Santa Maria Xochixtlapilco, Huajuapan de Leon, Oaxaca in 1957. He is one of the most recognized Mexican artists of his generation in Mexico. He has developed mainly in painting, although he has also worked in sculpture and engraving. He is part of a valuable group of Oaxacan painters born in the 20th century. Without being a true school, this group has in common a fantastic realism that is nourished by pre-Columbian inheritances, magical primitivism, the limitless wealth of popular art, as well as universal and cosmopolitan traditions.
When Sergio was a child, he liked to go to the wells to bathe and lie on the grass to listen to the cicadas. Since he was shy, he did not dare to go see the insects up close, so he was content to hear their sound and imagine what their shapes were like. Its sound filled the open space. Now those same insects are a recurring motif in his works, filling the space of his canvases, with a human form and, above all, color, like the drops of water in wells. He liked painting so much that he refused to go to school. At almost nine years old, he moved to Mexico City with his family. Following his vocation for painting, he studied at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas (National School of Visual Arts), formerly Academia de San Carlos, from 1973 to 1974. Later he studied at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado, La Esmeralda (National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving, La Esmeralda) from 1975 to 1980, where inclusive, According to him, he lived for a time because he had left his house. Among his teachers he mentions Gilberto Aceves Navarro as his painting teacher and Abraham Jiménez López as his direct carving teacher; and although they were not his teachers, he recognizes Rufino Tamayo and Francisco Toledo as two strong influences on his painting.
He has made frequent trips to Europe, the United States, Egypt, the Middle East and other places, studying both the art of the great masters and the trends and avant-gardes of the moment. The first time he traveled to New York was in 1978, by which time he had already obtained an award in the National Painting Competition for Students of Visual Arts, which the National Institute of Fine Arts sponsored in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Then in 1987, he stayed for two years in Paris, where he had contact with Peter Bramsen's engraving workshop, and eight months after his arrival he presented an individual exhibition at the Cultural Center of Mexico in Paris. On his second stay in Paris in 1995 he lived at the University Center and worked on a series to illustrate the Popol Vuh.
Sergio Hernandez has been an avid reader, having a predilection for ancient books and miniature manuscripts, such literature has had an influence and representation in his work, such as Francisco de Quevedo's poem "The dream of death" that Hernandez illustrated with nine etchings.
His works, whether colorful or monochromatic, in vivid colors or black and white, without texture or with a thick layer of oil and sand, show a magical world extracted from dreams, stories, pre-Hispanic stories, or literary passages, where insects with human bodies, skeletons, animals, phenomena, devils, angels, tzompantlis, circuses and jungles are the actors and centers of action of his artistic creations.
(Sources: Sergio Hernandez, Fomento Cultural Banamex, Turner, textos por Edward J. Sullivan, Teresa del Conde, Fabrizio Mejía Madrid, 2008)
Main Solo Exhibitions
|
1980 Galería Casa del Lago, Universidad Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México |
|
1980 Galería de la Secretaria de Hacienda y Crédito Público, Ciudad de México |
|
1980 Galería Chapultepec, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City |
|
1984 Centro Cultural Mexicano, San Antonio, Texas |
|
1984 Sergio Hernandez, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City |
|
1985 Pintura, Museo de Santander, Nuevo Laredo, Texas |
|
1985 La Fiesta, Galería OMR, Mexico City |
|
1986 Blanco y Negro, Casa de la Cultura, Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca |
|
1987 La Fiesta Negra, Galería de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City |
|
1987 Sergio Hernandez: La Paleta Moderna, Centro Cultural de México, Paris, France |
|
1988 Seis Dípticos, Galería de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City |
|
1989 Galería Ramis Barquet, Monterrey, Nuevo León |
|
1990 Cerámica, Galería de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City |
|
1993 Día de Muertos, Festival de Tepoztlán, Morelos |
|
1997 El día y la noche / Rufino Tamayo – Historias del día y la noche / Sergio Hernández, Museo Soumaya, Mexico City |
|
1998 Sergio Hernández: Werke, 1982-1998, Kunstverein Braunshweig, Brunswick, Germany |
|
1998 Sergio Hernández: El Circo, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca |
|
1999 Sergio Hernández: Exvotos Mexicanos, Arcos Itatti Galería de Arte, Mexico City |
|
1999 Sergio Hernández: Frescos, Galería de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City |
|
1999 Sergio Hernández: Pinturas recientes, Associated American Artists, New York |
|
2000 Sergio Hernández, Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City |
|
2000 Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Internacional Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City |
|
2000 Sergio Hernández: Retrospectiva, 1982-1999, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City |
|
2002 Exposición de Pinturas al Oleo, Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris |
|
2004 Sergio Hernández: Grabado y escultura, Galería de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City |
|
2005 Centro Cultural Casa Lamm, Mexico City |
|
2005 Estampas de Sergio Hernández, Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca |
|
2005 Sergio Hernández: Obra reciente, pintura y escultura, Museo José Luis Cuevas, Mexico City |
|
2006 El Nacimiento de la Euforia, Galería Sur, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco, Mexico City |
|
2007 Universidad Tecnológica de la Mixteca, Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca |
|
2007 Sueños y mentiras, Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca |
|
2007 Cura de Viento, Centro Cultural Estación Indianilla, Mexico City |
|
2007 El Sueño del Mago, Museo del Pueblo de Guanajuato |
|
2007 Sergio Hernández visita el Atrio de San Francisco, Atrios de la Iglesia de San Francisco, Museo Soumaya y Fundación del Centro Histórico, Mexico City |
|
2009 Musée du quai Branly, Paris |
|
2012-2014 Funámbulo de la noche, Itinerant Exhibition, Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca; Centro Cultural Casa Lamm, Mexico City; Instituto Cultural de México, San Antonio, Texas; Arts Center de la Universidad de Texas, en Brownsville; Galería del Consulado de México en Mc Allen; Galería del Consulado de México en Las Vegas; Galería Bellas Artes de St. Louis, Missouri, Regis Center for Art, University of Minnesota en Saint Paul, Minnesota |
|
2014 Plomos / Bronces, Galería de Arte del Complejo Cultural de la Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, BUAP, Puebla |
|
2015 Blanco de Plomo, Centro de las Artes de San Agustín Etla, Oaxaca |
|
2015 Los Ardientes, XII Bienal de La Habana, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, La Habana, Cuba |
|
2016 Hernandez’ Tre Passioni TRE, Labirinto della Masone, Parma, Italia |
|
2016 De sangre y de plomo mambo, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia |
|
2016 A ferro & fuoco, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Roma, Italy |
|
2017 El Inventor de Mapas, Nuevos Códices Mixtecos, Hospital de la Santa Caridad, Sevilla, Spain |
|
2017 Pasión Naturante, Centro de Cultura, Galeria Casa Lamm, Mexico City |
|
2018 El inventor de mapas, Centro Cultural Santo Domingo, Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca, Exconvento de Santo Domingo de Guzmán Oaxaca, Oaxaca |
|
2018 Sergio Hernández Último tule, Centro Cultural Tijuana, Tijuana Baja California |