DAN HERNANDEZ
WORK: GOED, 2020.
TECHNICAL DETAILS:Inkjet transfer, acrylic paint, varnish and paper on wood panels, 153 x 305 cm.
Description: GOED, after Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, is inspired by role-playing video games (RPGs), particularly those known as open world or sandbox, in which users can navigate freely.
Like Bosch’s triptych, it is made up of numerous vignettes, which encourage the viewer to embark on a visual adventure unconfined by linear narrative or sequential time.
The artwork is a large map, based on The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo, 1986), and is populated by characters borrowed from cartoons, video games and even medieval manuscripts. Philosophically, the piece addresses free will: the starting and end points in open world games are predetermined, raising the question of how far we are free to choose.
Biography: Visual parallels underlie the artwork of Dan Hernandez (San Diego, USA, 1977), who blends pre-Renaissance art with video game aesthetics to craft hybrid worlds seeped in popular culture. Sprites, cartoon characters and references to the present-day all find their way into his mixed media works whose perspective, colours or structure echo paintings by the likes of Fra Angelico or Duccio.
Hernandez trained at Northwest Missouri State and the American University, Washington, and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Toledo Art Department. He has received numerous awards including First Prize at the Annual Chautauqua Exhibit of Contemporary Art (2010 and 2013) and the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award (2011 and 2015). His work has been exhibited in the UK, USA and Italy, and was featured in Game Changers, the inaugural exhibition at MassArt Art Museum, Boston, in 2020.
Description: GOED, after Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, is inspired by role-playing video games (RPGs), particularly those known as open world or sandbox, in which users can navigate freely.
Like Bosch’s triptych, it is made up of numerous vignettes, which encourage the viewer to embark on a visual adventure unconfined by linear narrative or sequential time.
The artwork is a large map, based on The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo, 1986), and is populated by characters borrowed from cartoons, video games and even medieval manuscripts. Philosophically, the piece addresses free will: the starting and end points in open world games are predetermined, raising the question of how far we are free to choose.
Biography: Visual parallels underlie the artwork of Dan Hernandez (San Diego, USA, 1977), who blends pre-Renaissance art with video game aesthetics to craft hybrid worlds seeped in popular culture. Sprites, cartoon characters and references to the present-day all find their way into his mixed media works whose perspective, colours or structure echo paintings by the likes of Fra Angelico or Duccio.
Hernandez trained at Northwest Missouri State and the American University, Washington, and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Toledo Art Department. He has received numerous awards including First Prize at the Annual Chautauqua Exhibit of Contemporary Art (2010 and 2013) and the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award (2011 and 2015). His work has been exhibited in the UK, USA and Italy, and was featured in Game Changers, the inaugural exhibition at MassArt Art Museum, Boston, in 2020.
︎NAVE 16.MATADERO ︎︎︎07 OCT—27 FEB
