| Fermin
Hernandez, one of America's leading serigraph artists, was
born in St. Joseph, Missouri, on November 13, 1949. He moved to Denver
in 1978, seeking a new path for his life, where he began art school.
He entered the Community College of Denver and met his mentor, Mel Carter
- his first and most influential teacher.
"Mel made
me work hard. He saw potential in me. He gave me drive." During
his third semester, Fermin studied silk screen printing, known as
serigraphy. "As soon as I pulled the squeegee over the silk, I knew
that this was the medium with which I wanted to work."
|
|
| Honors,
Awards and Commissions
During his second
year in college, he came to New Mexico for a short trip. "When
I first entered New Mexico, I stopped the car and walked out on the
land." It was then that he saw his first pueblo. It changed his
life and his art. Fermin moved to New Mexico in 1985.
 "I wanted to be surrounded by Pueblo Indian architecture.
When I lived in Denver, I would travel to New Mexico and spend an
hour or two at a pueblo taking pictures and sketching. When I moved
to Albuquerque, I was able to spend all day watching and studying.
My art instantly changed. As the sun moved across the sky, I watched
the shadows and colors. Pueblos are sienna-colored, but the sun changes
that. In the morning the walls of the pueblo are a pink, mauve color.
At high noon, they become orange. In the evening, they are blue lavender.
The shadows are incredible."
 Fermin
characterizes his work as "stylized realism." First noted
for his adobes and scenes in soft pastel tones, his more recent work
shows richer colors and crisper treatments of a more varied nature.
His travels in the Mediterranean, another locale of astounding light,
have influenced his newest images. The seeming simplicity of his work,
done mostly in three to five colors, belies the complexity of the silkscreen process
- which involves from thirty to forty hues of each of those colors
and requiring a like number of 'pulls' on his screen.
 "I
see my art as an expression of form, highlights and shadows. I attempt
to exemplify simplicity and clarity of light to achieve a feeling
of depth and serenity. My art is not finished until they, the viewers,
complete it with their own involvement of emotions. Clean lines and
good technique are a must."
View
the Galleries
|
