03.02-04.16: MIKE HERNANDEZ

"Get home, help kids finish dinner and get ready for bed. While playing, Eden (2 yr. old daughter) jams a car key up her nose. Blood, tears, vomit. Call doctor. She’s ok. Kids to bed"

I met Mike through Scott Young (a past feature seen here). The first time we met I was sort of in a daze after seeing Matthew Barney's newest 6 hour long epic, River of Fundament. All the images of literal shit and performance art and convoluted story line and cinematic and musical beauty had me unable to fully function afterwards as a human being. Our second meeting was better when Scott got him to present some of his artwork at the art collective event I host in Long Beach a couple of weeks ago and I had a clearer head. His work is incredibly well thought out and innovative and I'm very excited to see where he continues to develop. To check out more of his artwork go to his website: Exile Child.

Because Scott was the one to introduce us, I asked him to write Mike's official intro:

Scott Young: I met Mike when he enrolled in a class I was teaching on Art & Religion back around 1998-99. He demonstrated both curiosity and confusion. Curiosity to expand his intellectual and artistic horizons-confusion in the havoc being wreaked on his inherited Christian belief structure. We embarked on many conversations related to this tension and the ensuing struggle to develop an identity as an artist with a constantly adjusting theological perspective. Mike was the breed of student this College Instructor was relentlessly on the prowl to locate.

After Mike graduated we evolved from student/teacher relationship to friends that required great food, strong drink, occasional smokes, and potent discussions on art/faith & doubt/politics/personal challenges.

In addition to being kindred spirits, I have functioned as both groupie & critic. Mike is an artist that possesses discipline/wild imagination/ambition. He works in hybrids & intersections: photography-sculpture/spiritual-secular/desert-urban/large scale-small scale/celebration-conflict/clarity-ambiguity/experiment-document. His art is prophetic as well as compassionate:passionately exploring the Human Prospect. Exile and occupying are themes that traffic in his amazing projects.
Enjoy the notes!