(American/Georgia, born 1964)

Untitled, White Bowl on Red, multi-media painting on paper, 50 x 38 in.; modern black frame, 56 x 44-1/2 in.

Provenance: Purchased from the artist

Note: "Tony Hernandez is haunted by photographs of children who perished in the Holocaust. He is also preoccupied with images of boys and girls who struggled through the Great Depression, especially in the ghettos of the Bronx where his grandparents lived. "Unlike adults, children are powerless," he says. "They're usually the ones to suffer the most from man's supreme ability to be ignorant throughout history." Imbued with a rich symbolism of his own creation, Hernandez's paintings of pre-adolescent boys and girls grapple with this powerlessness, as well as the "mind of wonder" that sustains children even in the darkest hours.

Over the past several decades, Hernandez has single-mindedly explored these themes, working exclusively on handmade birch wood panels using the technically-demanding process of encaustic painting. With a deceptively simple visual vocabulary, depicting children adrift in a featureless landscape, he creates vignettes of a subtle psychological power. His poignant compositions are distilled down to their emotional essence, granting viewers entry into a world of transcendence." - Modernism Gallery, San Francisco

Note: Through familiar themes of pain and loss, Tony Hernandez creates artworks through encaustic paintings that blend powerlessness with possibility. Hernandez has felt called to interpret some of these grievances through his common paintings of children found in suffering areas and time periods, from children of the Holocaust to those found in the ghettos of the Bronx. All of these children have had to face varying repercussions of ignorant actions made by adults. What Hernandez emphasizes in his work is how these children often turn to imagination to survive, and it is at this point where something horrific can be turned into something beautiful. These children can often be found depicted floating on a plain wooden background, creating an unavoidable focus on his subject. His works are often simple in composition and at the same time overflowing with sentiment. Tony Hernandez is an internationally recognized artist and currently works from his studio in Charlotte, North Carolina.