PRESENTATION: Secundino Hernández-Total Season
Born in Madrid in 1975, where he continues to live and work, Secundino Hernández stands as one of the most internationally recognized Spanish artists of his generation. His vibrant and diverse painting style defies easy categorization, but is characterized by intricately structured compositions that blend strong linear elements with bursts of color. Hernández seamlessly integrates representation and abstraction, drawing inspiration from a wide array of influences that span the whole of art history.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: MUSAC Archive
Secundino Hernández’s artistic practice is both meticulous and boldly experimental, rooted in an unwavering commitment to craftsmanship and innovation. His approach often involves unconventional techniques—scraping, washing, and manipulating paint directly from the tube—resulting in dynamic surfaces that seem to pulse with energy. Hernández even devises custom tools, underscoring his desire to push the limits of traditional painting methods. His canvases are charged with gestural intensity, marked by bold contours, vigorous brushwork, and an evident fascination with the very act of creation. While his work bears affinities with expressionism, Hernández departs from its emotional immediacy by adopting a more analytical and introspective methodology. His compositions invite viewers to navigate the interplay between drawing and painting, flatness and depth, structure and spontaneity. These dualities reflect a broader artistic pursuit: a deeply personal search for intimacy and meaning through the complexity of the painterly process. The exhibition “Total Season” offers a compelling survey of the last decade of Hernández’s oeuvre, highlighting the evolution of his visual language and his sustained engagement with abstraction. Rather than drawing heavily from historical references, Hernández has deliberately set out to forge a path that is distinctly his own—one that embraces solitude, experimentation, and rigorous self-inquiry. Over the past ten years, his work has been shaped by a focus on processual elements: erosion and layering of pigment, repetition and variation, compositional deconstruction, and the fragmentation and reassembly of canvas and cloth. Stains, gestural marks, and calligraphic traces emerge through a process of continual trial and error, emblematic of his restless inquiry into what painting can be. As the artist himself articulates, “I am interested in how painting is always expanding its boundaries—how it can be operated on, subjected to tensions, broken down, taken apart, and reassembled. If there are echoes of tradition, it is because certain elements—materiality, gesture, the interaction with support—are enduring constants in the history of painting.” A centerpiece of the MUSAC exhibition is “Four Seasons. Between Summer and Fall” (2017), a monumental polyptych that is being shown in a museum context for the first time. Alongside this large-scale painting, the show features a range of other significant works, including Hernández’s series of aluminum reliefs—illusionistic compositions that simulate assemblage—and a collection of silkscreen prints from 2020. Together, these diverse media underscore the breadth of Hernández’s practice and his ongoing reinvention of artistic language. Ultimately, “Total Season” reveals an artist engaged in a profound dialogue between intuition and structure, emotion and intellect. Through his evolving exploration of form and material, Hernández continues to challenge and expand the possibilities of contemporary painting.
Photo: Secundino Hernández. Untitled, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Ehrhardt Flórez Gallery. VEGAP, León, 2025
Info: Curator: Álvaro Rodríguez Fominaya, MUSAC (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León), Avenida de los Reyes Leoneses, 24, León, Spain, Duration: 12/7-19/10/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-sun 11:00-14:00 & 17:00-20:00, https://musac.es/
