Nadia Hernández – ‘Cosas Antes y Después
With a nostalgic heart for home, Venezuelan artist Nadia Hernández invites us into her whirling dreamlike reality in Cosas Antes y Después / Things Before and After.
In an orbiting cosmos of triumphs and trials of the everyday, peppered with symbols, declarations and icons of Venezulean folklore, Hernández’s work is both a continuing cultural exploration and a project of personal introspection. With an almost childlike whim, her pieces are crafted with tenacity, as people, animals, scenes and words are suspended with vigour as paper collages or as scratchy meanderings of oil crayons.
Powerfully relevant to our world, they meditate on our experience of its beauty but also, most importantly the inherently grim reality of its stories, which continue to shock and sadden us. Hernández’s world is a tale of the stories of the normalised individual and of relatable daily events, “the long lines of people waiting to buy food, the long lines of people waiting in the banks, seeing old friends, attending a protest with my grandfather (La Toma De Venezuela), people selling pre-made coffee on the street, meeting a man who made orange juice in El Valley”.
With such strength, Hernández captures the dichotomies of the human heart – the beauty and the realities – with a hope to continue a endlessly necessary conversation for action, union and change.
Nadia Hernandez
Cosas Antes y Después / Things Before and After
Mild Manners at Special Group Studio
270 Devonshire St, Surry Hills NSW
Exhibiting until April 23rd
Open Wednesday-Friday 12pm-6pm or by appointment
Credits: Courtesy of the artist Nadia Hernandez and Mild Manners
