The Singing Wall
February 14 - March 29, 2025
Gorgeously composed and filled with vibrant color, the mural paintings of Manuel Hernandez expand the narrative of contemporary Indigenous people within Latin America. Time is elastic in these tableaux; figures from myth and reality overlap and speak with each other. Indigenous people from the distant past appear alongside Indigenous people Hernandez meets daily on the streets of New York City. Figures are often on the move, traveling from one place to another, by boat, as in Paseo en la Agua, or in a village watched over by community members and mythical figures, as in They Came Following a Giant Eagle.
The sense of movement and migration echoes Hernandez’s own familial history and present. Born in Mexico City, Hernandez moved with his family to Southern Indiana, and then New York City to attend graduate school. Before arriving in Mexico City, his family lived in Sultepequito, a small town in Southern Mexico. Hernandez now has family in Southern Indiana, Mexico City and Sultepequito and travels between these places, retracing and repeating his familial migration in reverse.
Hernandez’s painting technique similarly bridges several forms and eras. He often begins with a large rough surface which is painted using a dry brush method. This technique echoes and acts as a tribute to artists of the Mexican Muralist movement and the ancient fresco murals of Teotihuacan in Mexico. Placed on top of these large panels are canvases cut into shapes resembling animal hide paintings. These painting depict family stories, Hernandez’s historical research and his exploration of his ancestors’ artworks and ruins.
Some canvases, like La Tejanita del Bronx, feature portrayals of Indigenous people Hernandez meets in New York City. In these encounters, Hernandez asks if he can paint a person’s portrait and then invites them back to his studio. In the studio, allows the conversation, which he records for reference, to go where it will. Hernandez then listens back to the exchange as he paints their portrait. Phrases and fragments from each conversation appear in the painting along with the likeness of the person he met. Among other things, La Tejanita speaks of of “all of Texas and Mexico”, of “preservation” and of coming to the US “We came for vacation and never left”.
The theme of continuous geographic and temporal migration, of time and place eternally looping back on themselves, is a thread that runs throughout the exhibition. It is perhaps best embodied in the figure of the Axolotl, or water monster, a salamander native to the lakes around Mexico City, particularly Lake Xochimilco. The figure of the Axolotl speaks to a time when the region was part of a vast system of lakes, where Aztecs originally founded the capital, Tenochtitlan, now the center of Mexico City. Once flourishing in the region, the Axolotl population has dwindled as the lake system has disappeared.
Hernandez positions the Axolotl as a sort of guardian. In Sembrado, one peers over the shoulder of the figure in the painting, arms outspread. In They Came Following a Giant Eagle, an impossibly large Axolotl hovers in the background of an open structure where a figure appears to bless a village gathering. Like the figure of the Axolotl, Hernandez’s paintings occupy past and present simultaneously, retelling the stories of his ancestors and reestablishing his connection to the cultures of Indigenous populations in America from a new perspective.
Manuel Hernandez (b. 1998, Mexico City, MX) lives and works in New York, NY. Hernandez received his MFA from New York Academy of Art and his work has been exhibited at Gallery Poulsen, Copenhagen, DK, Spring Break Art Fair, New York, NY, NADA Art Fair, Miami, FL, FRIEDA, Philadelphia, PA, and the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY.