Plinio Hernandez
Graduate Student

Contact information

Email: pliniohernandez@berkeley.edu

Group: Department of Art Practice

Personal statement

Plinio Hernandez was born in El Salvador and immigrated with his family to the U.S when he was five years old. Growing up in a fusion of both cultures, and the hardships that were imposed on him and his family’s life due to it, are the foundation and the main source of inspiration for his current artistic practice. Plinio’s work is centered on questions of identity as well as emigration, deportation, integration and nostalgia. His performance-based work accentuates vulnerability, confusion and ambiguity, all part of growing up displaced to a foreign environment, trying to make sense of the experience.

Hernandez received his BFA from Otis University in Los Angeles, concentrating mainly on documentary photography. He became disillusioned with documentary photography once he realized that it could easily be manipulated, which could make its informative aspect deceptive. Plinio moved away from pure documentation and began experimenting with photomontage, reflecting on the idea that humans have a tendency to recreate and piece together their identity and experience to suit their agenda. Currently he examines the ways in which immigrants from El Salvador portray themselves and their homeland in forums such as You Tube. Finding those video depictions inspiring in their tragic yet comic and overly nostalgic style, Plinio is in the process of creating a one- man musical inspired by them.

(Text by Merav Tzur, MFA 2011)