Nelson Hernandez • Chilean Contemporary Painter based in London

Chilean painter Nelson Hernández walks past the installation of "4 pounds per piece", twelve small oil-on-panel portraits drawn from Martin Gusinde's photographic archive of indigenous Patagonia.

Soon

Narrativas. May 14 – June 14, 2026.

Now

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2025 — Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle.

Recent Artworks

Collapse of meaning I by Nelson Hernández. Oil on wooden panel, 30 x 30 in. Red monochrome sculptural mass fusing classical statuary, plasticine modelling and toys against a neutral background.

Collapse of meaning I

The Slaying of the Hydra by Nelson Hernández, acrylic on linen, 190 x 170 cm. Cartoon-style composition depicting a heroic mythological act rendered in flat colour against a neutral background

The Slaying of the Hydra

Ozymandias by Nelson Hernández, oil on linen, 100 x 80 cm. Sculptural mass in deep blue tones of intertwined bodies against a flat yellow background, evoking classical ruins and monumental fragility

Ozymandias

Exhibitions

Two gallery visitors standing before the painting Ukranian girl, contemplating the composition of the young woman viewed from behind by the window within the institutional gallery setting

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award

Group exhibition

27 Mar – 4 Sep 2026Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle

Two visitors looking at Ozymandias II by Nelson Hernández at Loop State, D Contemporary, London. Painting on a cyan background with a reddish sculptural form

Loop State

Group exhibition

15 Mar – 15 Apr 2026D Contemporary, London

Entrance view of What we take at Pipeline Gallery, Fitzrovia. A gallery attendant sits at the reception desk, three small paintings hang on the back wall, afternoon sunlight falling across the parquet floor.

What we take

Group exhibition

5 Mar – 27 Mar 2026Pipeline Gallery