On the picture H. E. Eduardo Ibarrola Nicolin at the opening of the exhibition at Pulchri.
Text and pictures by John Dunkelgrün.
Finally the work of Sergio Hernández has come to The Netherlands. Oaxaca in Mexico’s Southwest is one of the main artistic centers of the country with many outstanding painters and sculptors.
Hernández, a Oaxaqueño by birth, follows in the footsteps of Rufino Tamayo and Francisco Toledo. When I had my gallery, I showed his contemporaries Alejandro Santiago and Guillermo Olguin, and would have loved to show Sergio Hernández, but sadly failed to connect with him.
Born in 1957, his family moved to Mexico City in search of work. At first there was no money for schooling, so he scribbled and drew in notebooks while doing all sorts of odd jobs. Later he managed to get professional training first at the National School for the plastic Arts and later graduated from the National School of painting, Sculpture and engraving “La Esmeralda”.
With the money from his first solo shows he travels to Paris, where he lived for a year and was influenced by the European avant-garde. However, he remained true to his roots.
After his return to Oaxaca he worked in many different techniques expressing indigenous images, legends and beliefs in contemporary styles using color in a true symbiosis with form.
Of late, his work has become more abstract and he works a lot with woodcuts (there are several splendid examples at the Pulchri show) .
He has exhibited all over Mexico, in the U.S. and Germany and has work in more than half a dozen major museums.
Ambassador Eduardo Ibarolla was visibly proud to introduce the work of Sergio Hernández at the opening of an exposition in the Pulchri building on the Lange Voorhout 15 on November 22nd.
The exhibition will be there for a month and is really worth seeing.
