Interview
Miguel Hernandez
Miguel is an artist born in Mexico and raised in the United States.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I was born in Mexico and I was raised in the United States. The start of my art journey started when I was eight years old. I taught myself to draw when I found a piece of paper and a pencil in my room. I played with legos, so I made them my models. I drew the legos as they were or upside down. I continue my journey in the United States when I was in high school. I remember that I had a girlfriend and she taught me to draw with the technique of pointillism. This experience with this special person marked me to keep pushing my abilities in art. I stated to explored different mediums from color pencils, graphite pencils, charcoal, oil pastel, oil paint, acrylic paint, different types of paper. I love to use any medium because my goal is to be able to express myself as much as possible so the world gets to know me. I would like to become an important part in the art world.”
What does your work aim to say? Does it comment on any current social or political issues?
“My art aims to say who I am. A persistent individual that loves beautiful things because I love the world I leave in. Most of the time, my work, reflects my memory. Whatever I paint or draw is because I would like to remember things and make them beautiful at the same time. I often think what I want to draw of paint and I paint beautiful things, but if I think a thing needs to be more beautiful then I make it more beautiful. Because I have the power to bring out more beauty to objects or sometimes I just think and reflect that every object has its own characteristics that makes them unique and beautiful. I don't think there is nothing to change in objects and people. What I think is that I can draw them and paint as they are and that is perfect. There is no better study of the individual, be a person or a thing, that drawing and painting and what the power of observation can bring. I think the social issue that my art covers is giving time to think on loving the world more. The people and the things that exist are related to each other. That aspect, our relationship to our surrounding, its importance sometimes is forgotten and what I make art for is for you to remember. You can remember like me. The chair for example makes me remember about the lifestyle I have at the moment that I am living in a studio in the city of Boston, and at that time when I was thirty. The time anybody could fall in love and live up for so long in a dream come true. With the joy I had about making that painting and that I'm privilege to be able to grab a brush and splash the stain of paint on a canvas.”
Do you plan your work in advance, or is it improvisation?
“My art aims to say who I am. A persistent individual that loves beautiful things because I love the world I leave in. Most of the time, my work, reflects my memory. Whatever I paint or draw is because I would like to remember things and make them beautiful at the same time. I often think what I want to draw of paint and I paint beautiful things, but if I think a thing needs to be more beautiful then I make it more beautiful. Because I have the power to bring out more beauty to objects or sometimes I just think and reflect that every object has its own characteristics that makes them unique and beautiful. I don't think there is nothing to change in objects and people. What I think is that I can draw them and paint as they are and that is perfect. There is no better study of the individual, be a person or a thing, that drawing and painting and what the power of observation can bring. I think the social issue that my art covers is giving time to think on loving the world more. The people and the things that exist are related to each other. That aspect, our relationship to our surrounding, its importance sometimes is forgotten and what I make art for is for you to remember. You can remember like me. The chair for example makes me remember about the lifestyle I have at the moment that I am living in a studio in the city of Boston, and at that time when I was thirty. The time anybody could fall in love and live up for so long in a dream come true. With the joy I had about making that painting and that I'm privilege to be able to grab a brush and splash the stain of paint on a canvas.”
Are there any art world trends you are following?
“I don't know - I just paint because I want to. It is like a feeling I really want to have and something just happens while I'm painting or when I'm thinking what I'm going to paint. I painted the tree that it's being removed from my house and I am making a series of works with different mediums because I feel that I need to say good-bye to something that had always been important in my life. My dad planted that tree fifty years ago and now I have to let it go. The tree is older than me and I played under neath when I was a baby and my friend climbed the tree. I can remember my childhood friends playing with me right next to it in the pool and having fun. I think making art for fun is a trend. Yes, I follow the trend of art making to enjoy memories and life.”
What process, materials and techniques do you use to create your artwork?
“The process that works for me is make things. To make, is a process, the action of activity is the process I like the most. I say this like it because I dislike when I have thoughts and I don't work them out in the physical world. I tried to make my thoughts real. I think therefore I do. You can say that I am mostly thinking in art. Yes, is true. Working in the art business makes me so happy and I spend days making up things out to satisfy my hunger about art. The material I like to use the most are brushes and I like to paint on canvases and I like to use acrylic the most. I like acrylics because they dry fast and they have a great variety of colors. My favorite brand of acrylics is Golden because they are vibrant and not watery but not too dry, perfect choice if you ask me. I like to use the technique of divisionism or pointillism. I am able to adapt to any technique as needed. Sometimes when there is something that it feels difficult, then I feel gravity in my thinking being stronger. So I make whatever is difficult to make and I feel a sense of achievement because I was able to do something that my body felt it was difficult or impossible for me. I like to work against the thought of improbable and make things happen.”
What does your art mean to you?
“My art means a lot to me, but in time Ive learnt that I have to make space for other things in my life-- the people I love. When I was younger I would have been selfish and spend all my time in art. Things have change in my life because Ive also learnt to spend the time I have with the important people that I have in my life. I don't think all about myself anymore or my art because I learnt that my community is important.”
What’s your favourite artwork and why?
“My favorite artwork would be Guernica, by Picasso. I say this because I think it is an important piece of art that brings peace to the world. I want to think that people would deviate from those moments in the future because they see this painting and realize what war can do to people. We don't leave in peaceful times and other people are suffering and I don't know why can't we learn from the past. This is a piece from the past that inspires me to paint to achieve world peace. That is my main goal whenever I touch the brush, I paint so much so that one day I might make so many painting and may be one would bring out peace to many people, to a lot of people.”
Instagram: @mahe.art.original
Brush Bio: brush.bio/mahestry
