Hernan Bas

Paintings by Hernan Bas

Born in 1978 in Miami, Florida, Hernan Bas is an American painter whose work presents a world composed of personal and historical references. Graduated from the New World School of the Arts in 1996, Bas creates his multilayered, densely textured works of art, by combining the mediums of woodcut, linoleum print, airbrush or gold leaf with painting,.

Hernan Bas takes his inspiration from literature, history and contemporary culture, presenting in his work references to Romanticism and Nihilism, and literary allusion to such writers as Robert Frost and Oscar Wilde. Inspired by the aesthetics of the male androgynous dandy, Bas constructs narratives of adolescent exploration, which often serve as metaphors for a sexual and sensual awakening.

Portrayed usually alone in sprawling natural surroundings, the figures in Bas’s large-format paintings reside in a utopian world of innate sensuality, painted with lush, abundant brushstrokes. The stories of their adventures are woven together with classical poetry, mythology, religious stories, the paranormal, and classical literature.

Hernan Bas’s 2017 exhibition at the gallery Victoria Miro Mayfair was inspired by the lore and romanticism of life at Cambridge, England. Following a period of research while in residence at Jesus College Cambridge in 2016, Bas developed new subject matter including the famed ‘Night Climbers of Cambridge’, a group of students whose nocturnal ascents of the ancient buildings of the university and town, taking photographs while trying to avoid detection, gained them a cult following during the early decades of the twentieth century.

Loosely based on vintage men’s fashion magazine covers, the Bas’s most recent work depicts male magazine-cover celebrities surrounded by a choreographed array of artifacts, accessories and architectural elements that point to the idea of identity. Infused with an aura of eroticism and decadence, and loaded with codes and double-meanings, these recent works of Hernan Bas further point to the intricacies of self-identity, while celebrating moments of transformation from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

Hernan Bas had solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2009, Miami’s Rubell Family Collection in 2008, and the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami in 2002. He currently, October 17 to December 10 2020, is showing at gallery Ocula in Paris.  Hernan Bas’s work has also been widely exhibited in group exhibitions, including shows at the Venice Biennale, the Busan Biennale, the Aspen Art Museum, and the Whitney Biennial, among many others. 

Hernan Bas has work in the permanent collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; Detroit Institute of Arts; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and others.

Second Insert Image: Hernan Bas, “The Palm Tree Enthusiast”, 2021, Acrylic and Gouache on Arches Paper, 76.2 x 57.2 cm, Anat Ebgi Gallery

Bottom Insert Image: Hernan Bas, “A Gathering of Minds (The Agoraphobic), 2021, Acrylic on Linen, 182.9 x 153.4 x 4.45 cm, Anat Ebgi Gallery