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Secundino Hernández

11/08 2012 – 25/08 2012


Mendes Wood DM is delighted to announce the first solo show of the Spanish artist Secundino Hernández in Brazil.

Secundino Hernández works in a realm of quotations and references to the history of painting, creating writer-like compositions. In many ways, he brings forward notions of modernism. Note: there’s a tension here between form and content and its hierarchies are on the verge of collapse: are these paintings or abbreviations of paintings? Are these formalist hieroglyphic structures? Or simply caricatures of the 20th century isms?

The work of Secundino resides in a realm of discourse where the medium reaches a level of painterly virtuosity allowing his royal entrance: the woven structure of his novel-like-paintings acknowledges their idols openly: the starry constellations of Miro and deconstructed female figures of cubism, the vaporous mirages of Dali, or the fever dreams of the last Magritte (La période vache, in 1948). For Secundino, the work is a mental structure: painting is a form of thought, painting is a form of re-writing.

Secundino Hernández (b. Madrid, 1975) lives and Works in Berlin. Hernandez’s most recent exhibitions include Galeria Nuno Centeno, Porto. Galería Heinrich Ehrhardt, Madrid. Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna. Other exhibitions: Frith Street Gallery, London. Biksady Gallery, Budapest. Château de Servières, Marseille. Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin. Kunstverein Pfaffenhofen.

His work is present in collections as AGO, Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada. Patio Herreriano Museum, Valladolid, Spain. Coca Cola Fundation, Spain. Banco Santander Fundation, Spain. MOCA, Miami. Rubell Family Collection, Miami.