Ana María Hernando

Seguir Cantando (Keep Singing)

Ana María Hernando: Seguir Cantando (Keep Singing) marks the Argentine-born, Colorado-based artist’s largest solo museum exhibition in a decade. In this exhibition, Hernando presents over 20 works, including new large-scale sculptures in dialogue with examples from the past 30 years of her practice. Rendered in her signature materials — tulle, textiles, paintings, and works on paper — Hernando explores how elements of nature, vibrant color, and collectivity are potent emblems of strength, persistence, and rebirth. Hernando is a multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on the feminine, using empathy to make the invisible visible and to question our preconceptions of the other and each other, including nature and the earth, their worth, and value.

Since 2018, Hernando has transformed stereotypically feminine material, specifically tulle, into large-scale sculptures that appear to emerge from walls, ceilings, and windows, or spring vertically from the ground. For Hernando, tulle alludes to a fantasy of complacent feminine fragility, an image she rebels against by bringing the material forward in such bounty that it loses its demureness and instead becomes a locus of power. It is the softness of the tulle that allows the installations to flow through and densely fill spaces with a sense of gravitas and forward momentum. For Hernando, this abundance is an unstoppable force that signifies power and collectivity, strength and regeneration.

The exhibition’s title, Seguir Cantando, borrows from the refrain of “Como La Cigarra” (1972), a song by the Argentine writer, composer, poet, and musician María Elena Walsh. Walsh wrote the lyrics while reflecting on her life and artistic career, likening their ebbs and flows to the life cycle of the cicada. During Argentina’s military dictatorship (1976-1983), the song took on new meaning and became a powerful anthem of resistance and strength. In the context of Hernando’s exhibition, the phrase “seguir cantando” serves as an inspirational charge to persist through joy amid adversity.