Hernan Bas: Ask the Sky

Driven by an interest in literature and a passion for historical painting, Bas infuses his compositions with nihilist romanticism. As he has recently moved away from more figure-dominated work, the paintings in “Ask the Sky” relish in the landscape—forests and jungles that are rich with rushing waters, birds in flight, the gravity of wet paint, and become at once a dream and a nightmare. As he reflects on this body of work, Bas comments that “Ask the Sky is harping back to the grand feeling of being really puny in the scheme of it all… taking little leaps of faith that while they might be imaginary are incredibly important right now.” Bas' rich palette flames with dreamy brushstrokes, and his forms swell and recede with controlled eroticism.

This exhibition is comprised of large-scale paintings including one diptych and a grouping of graphite drawings—many of which are studies for completed and upcoming works where Bas focuses in on characters from larger works, and a more formal line that informs his looser brushwork.

Bas currently lives and works in Miami, FL. He is a graduate of the New World School of Arts, Miami. His work was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial, and he recently closed his first retrospective at the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, FL.