About

Nelson Hernandez

Born in Chilean Patagonia.
Lives and works in London.

Biography

Nelson Hernández works in traditional media (oil and acrylic), moving freely across pictorial styles according to what each painting demands. His canvases are assembled into fractured scenes and resolved through painting: the eye finds nowhere to settle, yet every fragment answers to a precise decision. Having grown up in one of the most isolated territories in the world and painting today from the centre of the global art circuit defines the question that sustains his practice: how globalised culture erodes the specific and the local.

He holds an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London, and a BA in Visual Arts from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery (Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award, 2025) and the Saatchi Gallery, London; his solo exhibition Fever Dreams was presented at Isabel Croxatto Gallery, Santiago (2026). His work is held in the Ca.Sa. Collection (Santiago) and the WARI Collection (New Delhi).

Statement

I am a Chilean painter born in Patagonia and based in London. Growing up in one of the world’s most remote geographies and working today in one of the capitals of global art is not a biographical detail: it is the foundation of my work. That transit allowed me to experience at first hand how the specific and the local dissolve within a globalised culture, and that erosion of identity is the central problem of my painting.

I work with oil and acrylic on canvas and wooden panel. Through photogrammetry and 3D modelling I capture precise cultural fragments: museum sculptures and artefacts that embody the “universal” European canon, and toys and pop culture objects that now operate as the contemporary equivalent of the same mechanism. I assemble these digitised fragments into fractured scenes that I resolve in painting, where the image finds its final form.

The result is dreamlike, unstable compositions that are nonetheless meticulously constructed: defocused surfaces, blurred edges, objects of radically different cultural origins held at the same intensity within a single plane. I move freely between pictorial registers (photographic, gestural, cartoonish) according to what each work demands, in affinity with Gerhard Richter’s pictorial freedom. The references never quite settle: they oscillate between recognition and uncertainty, like images that have been copied, circulated and degraded over time.

I am interested in soft power as a continuous mechanism. Where religion and evangelisation were once the colonial weapons of cultural erasure, mass media and the cultural weight of the West now perform the same function through different instruments. My paintings are not simply about appropriation or quotation, but about the very instability of perception and the fragility of cultural memory within a globalised visual culture.

Education

2024–25

Master in Painting. Royal College of Art, London.

2005

Minor in Eastern Thought. Faculty of Philosophy and Institute of Aesthetics, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.

2002–06

Arts. Faculty of Arts, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.

Exhibitions

2026

‘Narrativas’, Pavilion Club Knightsbridge, London.

2026

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

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.

INTERVIEWS

2026

In the Studio with: Nelson Hernandez. Interview for Art in Latin America.

2024

Meet the Artist // Nelson Hernández. Interview for GlogauAIR, Berlin residency programme.