Born in Chilean Patagonia.
Lives and works in London.
BIO
Nelson Hernandez is a painter whose practice examines the visual and cultural consequences of globalisation. Working primarily on traditional techniques, he is best known for reinterpreting iconic images from art history and popular culture through shifting painterly styles, blurred surfaces, and appropriative strategies. His paintings often juxtapose the venerable and the vernacular, using pastiche and decontextualisation as central formal devices.
Hernandez’s work addresses the erosion of local identity under the pressures of global standardisation. Drawing on his upbringing in a remote Patagonian context, his paintings stage encounters between historical and contemporary imagery, setting canonical references against popular visual culture.
Hernandez holds a BA in Fine Arts from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London. His work has been exhibited internationally in North and South America and Europe, including at Saatchi Gallery and the Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, London. His paintings are held in private and institutional collections in North America, Chile, India and Italy, including the Ca.SA Collection (Santiago) and WARI Collection (New Delhi).
STATEMENT
I am a painter born in Chilean Patagonia, and my work serves as a commentary on the effects of the globalisation within which I exist. Being born in a remote location has allowed me to witness firsthand how the specific and local become diluted in favour of a universal, globalised culture. Consequently, my paintings borrow iconic imagery from both art history and popular culture, reinterpreting these through diverse pictorial styles. By altering their original meanings, I seek to highlight the tension surrounding the loss or dissolution of local identity within the context of global standardisation.
This disappearance of the local in favour of the universal manifests itself in my work through an eclectic use of painting styles and visual references, aligning with the critical tradition of pastiche and decontextualisation exemplified by artists such as Sigmar Polke or Gerhard Richter. The deliberate juxtaposition of the old with the new, the revered with the popular, thus becomes central to my artistic practice.
Through this pictorial strategy, I aim to foster a critical dialogue between painting and its history, using technique not merely as a formal tool, but as a conceptual vehicle connecting the past and the present, thereby interrogating notions of identity and memory in the contemporary era.
EXHIBITIONS
- 2026
- ‘Loop State‘, D-Contemporary Gallery, London.
- 2026
- ‘What we take‘, Pipeline Gallery with CM Art Advisory and Art in Latinamerica, London.
- 2026
- ‘Fever Dreams’. Solo Show, Isabel Croxatto Gallery. Santiago, Chili.
- 2025
- ‘ArtEvol 2025: Voices from the Undefined’. Saatchi Gallery, London.
- 2025
- ‘Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award 2025’. National Portrait Gallery, London.
- 2025
- ‘Terraforming: Mapping Space Through Pigment’. Museum Street, London.
- 2025
- ‘Donde Comenzamos (Where We Begin)‘. The Bomb Factory Holborn, London.
- 2025
- ‘RCA2025: Postgraduate Show’. Royal College of Art, London.
- 2025
- ‘Parrhesia‘. Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art, London.
- 2025
- ‘Rejection: When No Said Yes’. Hangar Gallery, Royal College of Art, London.
- 2024
- ‘The Persistence of Memory’. Ca.Sa. Collection, Santiago, Chili.
- 2024
- ‘Open Studio GlogauAIR’. Residency Program Berlin, Germany.
- 2022
- ‘Nuevas Generaciones’. CV Gallery, Santiago, Chili.
- 2022
- ‘PLAYGROUND’. Factoría Santa Rosa Gallery, Santiago,
Chili. - 2022
- ‘B&N / Oscuro y Germinal’. Factoría Santa Rosa Gallery, Santiago, Chili.
- 2021
- ‘Tiempos fragmentados’. Galería Artespacio, Santiago, Chili.
- 2018
- ‘Galería Artespacio Joven BBVA’, Artespacio Gallery, Santiago, Chili.
ART FAIRS
- 2026
- CAN Contemporary Art Now. Represented by Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Madrid.
- 2024
- FAST. Contemporary Art Fair. Santiago, Chili.
- 2023
- Pinta PArC. Represented by Factoría Santa Rosa, Lima, Peru.
- 2022
- Art Miami. Represented by Factoría Santa Rosa, Miami.
- 2021
- FAXXI. Online Art Fair, Santiago, Chili.
- 2021
- CHILARTe. Contemporary Art Fair, Santiago, Chili.
- 2020
- ArtStgo. Contemporary Art Fair, Online. Santiago, Chili.
- 2018
- Ch.ACO. Represented by Artespacio Gallery. Santiago, Chili.
- 2018
- ArtStgo. Contemporary Art Fair. Santiago, Chili.
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
- WARI Art. New Delhi, India.
- Ca.Sa. Collection. Santiago, Chili.
RESIDENCIES
- 2024
- GlogauAIR. Residency Program Berlin, Germany.
PUBLICATIONS
- 2025
- National Portrait Gallery. (2025). Herbert Smith Freehills & Kramer Portrait Award 2025: Catalogue. London: National Portrait Gallery.
- 2025
- Spence, R. (Ed.). (2023). Soft witness: 50 artists 50 stories. London: Lund Humphries.
- 2024
- GlogauAIR. (2024). GlogauAIR Catalogue Q2 2024. Berlin: GlogauAIR.
- 2021
- 30x30x30. Hernandez Nelson (2021). Self-published, Santiago.
- 2016
- 50 Buenos días. Hernandez Nelson (2016). Santiago: EUONIA.
AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS
- 2025
- Wari x CM The Selects Program, London, UK.
- 2025
- Travers Smith CSR Art Programme, London, UK.
- 2020
- Cover and participation in the special edition of Pléyade magazine, humanities and social sciences magazine, Universidad de Chile.
- 2018
- 1st place Artespacio Joven BBVA Gallery competition, Artespacio Gallery, Santiago, Chile.