Project Details

For their skill exchange, Fernando Andrade and Guadalupe Hernandez offered support to each other to make their practices more public-facing using technology and new modes of fabrication. 

Andrade shared his experiences of utilizing SEO (search engine optimization) with Guadalupe Hernandez in order to expand Hernandez’s expertise. In turn, Hernandez shared his experience of converting cut paper designs into steel sculptures using technology to waterjet cut and powdercoat a piece of carbon steel. Hernandez use this knowledge of how to prepare files for CAD systems and expertise using laser cutters to help Andrade convert a 2D design into a site specific installation, thus expanding his studio practice. 

In this five-part series, Fernando Andrade provides an introduction for how artists can use SEO to enhance their visibility in online searches.

Bios

Born in 1987 in the border town of Acuña, Mexico, Fernando Andrade has lived in San Antonio, Texas, since he was seven years old. As a Latinx artist, Andrade works with two distinct bodies of work: figurative drawings and abstract paintings. While his drawings are narrative and the paintings improvised, they both explore his cross-cultural identity. In his representational drawings, Andrade creates narratives to bring awareness to border violence, gun culture, the migrant experience, and mental health. In his God Bless America series, Andrade draws attention to the American gun culture by superimposing intricately detailed images of branches over barely visible slogans. In another series La Ruta (The Route), Andrade depicts Mexican travel buses to portray the need for connecting individuals and places which promotes movement for a multicultural and vibrant community. Andrade creates abstract spaces with his paintings that express freedom from the anguish underlying his figurative work. Working in a meditative process, the artist creates colorful organic compositions allowing himself to imagine arrangements and rhythmic affinities.

Guadalupe Hernandez (b.1993) is a Houston-based multi-disciplinary artist who earned his MFA from Houston Baptist University in 2021. Hernandez was born in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, before relocating to Pleasanton, Texas, a small city south of San Antonio, in 1998. Despite moving to the United States, Hernandez maintained a deep connection to his Mexican heritage and customs through time-honored familial traditions. Hernandez’s practice examines his cultural identity by reinterpreting childhood memories and family stories connecting his past and offering greater meaning to his present. Through the use of photographic references accumulated over several years, retracing the markets, street scenes, and people of his homeland Hernandez creates elaborate Papel Picado portraits and figurative oil paintings with gestural brushwork.