ART CITIES:London-Secundino Hernández
Secundino Hernández’s work has been characterised by an exploratory zeal, an insatiable curiosity for materials and processes and the way thought extends across the canvas. The relationship between life as lived and life as painted, and the attempt to link both in a complete, human work is at the core of his work, a never-ending search for an answer to resolve the conflict between reality and a work of art.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Victoria Miro Gallery Archive
Secundino Hernández’s solo exhibition “Paso” features works made especially for the Victoria Miro’s Gallery spaces at Wharf Road and Mayfair in London, including abstract paintings and a new series of figurative works. The exhibition title refers to a series of movements through abstraction and figuration. At Wharf Road, Hernández presents abstract paintings that continue his investigation into gesture and form while extending the innovative techniques of accumulation and removal for which he has become widely known. Dramatic contrasts of color and scale inform displays in the ground and first floor galleries. In the ground floor gallery, a series of large-scale gestural canvases based around the primary colors find their apparent opposite in a monochrome ‘palette’ work. In contrast, the first floor gallery features ostensibly monochrome paintings, energised through linear dynamism and derived in part from a process of removing paint with a pressure washer. In a new body of works on display at Victoria Miro Mayfair, figurative forms are conjured from a dynamic interplay of lines and marks. Hernández thinks of these works as “Invented portraits”, modelled not on specific individuals but analytical of techniques, such as chiaroscuro, used to delineate and describe a figure in space. Together, the works in the exhibition reveal an extended consideration of process and image, and the expanded scope of the artist’s pictorial language.
Info: Victoria Miro Gallery, 16 Wharf Road and 14 St George Street, London, Duration: 1/4-6/5/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.victoria-miro.com
