His paintings deftly combine representation and abstraction, linear draughtsmanship and colouration, minimalism and gesturalism. Over the course of his career Hernández has mixed diverse references: a physicality that recalls Action Painting, the shorthand figuration of cartoons, and passages evoking painterly precedents. This stylistic multiplicity grows out of Hernández's detailed and informed knowledge of art history. While his references are broad he has, in recent years, developed a specific engagement with the work of old and modern masters from his native country, Spain, as a way of getting in touch with his personal and artistic roots. For Hernandez, such references are signposts rather than subjects in their own right. Distilled to essences of line, colour and form, his paintings always foreground the particularities of the medium, its defining characteristics.

In keeping with the breadth of his influences, Hernández employs a variety of seemingly contradictory techniques including washing, scraping, and working directly from paint tubes. While some works are the result of conspicuous addition, his ‘wash’ canvases, by contrast, are produced by layering and removing paint with a heavy-duty pressure washer. Almost archaeological in nature, this method involves digging through pigment to expose the canvas beneath, a process that the artist associates with sculptural carving. The resulting paintings have a dramatic, exploratory quality.

His is a meticulous and process-oriented approach, and his paintings openly display the triumphs and struggles of the artist's practice, creating a tension between control and chaos, rehearsal and re-evaluation, making and unmaking, beauty and destruction.

Secundino Hernández was born in 1975 in Madrid, where he currently lives and works. 

Solo exhibitions of his work have recently been presented at Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, Austria (2023); Heinrich Ehrhardt, Madrid, Spain (2023); Galerie Bärbel Grässlin, Frankfurt, Germany (2023); Victoria Miro, London, UK (2022); Galeria Nuno Centeno, Porto, Portugal (2022); Miettinen Collection, Berlin, Germany (2022); The Insular Museum, Cabildo of La Palma, Spain (2021-2022); Vortic Collect Online (Victoria Miro, 2020); Meadows Museum, Dallas, Texas, USA (2019); Victoria Miro, Venice, Italy (2019); CAC Málaga, Spain (2018); Taidehalli Helsinki, Finland (2018); Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2015); Maison Louis Carré, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne, France (2014); and Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, Finland (2014).

The artist has also participated in group shows including Entre los ojos el deseo, Olivia Arauna Collection, Alcobendas Art Center, Madrid, Spain (2024);  Extraordinary Form, Miettinen Collection, 2000s-Present, Salon Dhalmann, Berlin, Germany (2024); The lens within your heart, Takeuchi Collection, What Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2023); Painters Paint Paintings: La Versión, Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, USA (2022); Foreign Affairs, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, Austria (2022); Spanish and International Artists, Galeria Daniel Cardani, Madrid, Spain (2019); Spain Over the Rainbow, Mirat, Madrid, Spain (2019); Lush Strokes - Phantom Forms, Galerie Isa, Mumbai, India (2018); The Art Show, Art of the New Millennium, Taguchi Art Collection, Japan (2017); Summer Exhibition 2017, Royal Academy, London, UK (2017); Abstract Painting Now, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems, Austria (2017); Das Allerletze Prof. Winkler Stipendium at Kunstverein Weiden, Austria (2013); Alone Together at the Rubell Family Collection / Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami, USA (2013); Dialogos DKV - Patio Herreriano at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Espanol, Valladolid, Spain (2013); Berlin Status 1 at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany (2012) and Berlin Klondyke 2011 at Art Center Los Angeles, USA (2011).

His work is in numerous institutional and private collections, including Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada; Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand; Montenmedio Contemporánea Foundation, Cádiz, Spain;  Friedrichs Collection, Bonn, Germany; Jorge Pérez Collection, Miami, USA; Masaveu Foundation, Madrid, Spain; Foundation 20/21 Collection, La Palma, Spain; Meadows Museum, Dallas, Texas, USA; Helga de Alvear Foundation, Cáceres, Spain; Kunstdepot Göschenen, Switzerland; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, UK; North Carolina Museum, USA; The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, USA; Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China; Zabludowicz Collection, Sarvisalo, Finland.