"Genesis" by Dan Hernandez on Display in September

The Fairmont State University Department of Art announces the solo painting exhibition “Genesis” by artist Dan Hernandez opens Monday, Sept. 12.

The JD Brooks Gallery, located on the fourth floor of Wallman Hall on the FSU main campus, is open Mondays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the exhibition will run from Sept. 12 through Oct. 4. A closing reception and gallery talk are planned for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4. Admission to the exhibit and the reception is free and open to the public. For more information, call (304) 367-4147.

Hernandez received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2000 from Northwest Missouri State (Maryville, Mo.) and a Masters of Fine Arts in 2002 from American University (Washington, D.C.). He is currently represented by Kim Foster Gallery in New York City. His work is exhibited internationally and has been written about in a number of publications including ARTnews, HyperAllergic, Artillery Magazine, Arte Fuse, Gizmodo and Der Spiegel. He was selected for an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellency Award in 2011 and in 2015. Hernandez is currently an Assistant Professor in the Art Department at the University of Toledo.

Following is the artist’s statement about the exhibit: “Genesis is defined as ‘the coming into being of something; the origin,’ but like many words that can be used as both noun and proper noun, what it communicates depends largely on its usage. Two of its usages, and the relationship that exists between them, are particularly interesting and relevant to this body of work. In the first, and probably most well-known, Genesis is the title of an important religious text. In the second, and equally well known amongst my generation, Genesis is the Sega video game console that hit the home gaming market in the late 1980s. While these two usages come from very different traditions, they share some common ground. On a basic level both signify a type of narrative device. In the case of the religious text, the Book of Genesis houses the creation stories that are part of the Christian tradition; Noah’s Ark, Adam and Eve, etc. Similarly, the Sega Genesis game console is a vehicle for narrative games like Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Altered Beast and others. On another level, both of the narrative collections that are associated with these usages of Genesis utilize the supernatural and mythic as a central and reoccurring theme. These comparisons are clearly a bit of a stretch, but within the space that is created by embracing such eccentric relationships there exists unique and interesting possibilities for artistic exploration.”

Hernandez says about his art practice: “In my artistic process I make connections like the ones mentioned above. They are often misguided, insignificant and rarely art historically correct, but I embrace them as absolute. Generally, the associations are loosely tied together through some visual dialog between the two or more parts. These misconceptions are often the genesis of new paths in my development as an artist.”

School of Fine ArtsArt DepartmentDan HernandezGenesis