Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

A Splinter (Study for Painting) is a large graphite work on paper by Hernan Bas that was intended as a study for a later painting. The composition features three unfinished figures, all of whom appear to be observing something unrendered or external to the picture plane. Around the group of figures roughly framed by the outline of a triangle, is a frenzy of loose marks and smudged lines that juxtapose the delicate features of the figures’ faces.

Painting (Painting)

Beau Soleil #7 ’s title (translated as Beautiful Sun) gives a good sense of its effect. By virtue of a grid of dots, slightly different in size and placement, a subtle shimmering is created. In readily showing its effect as an image of light, the work exists between abstraction and representation—and perhaps points to the folly of such a distinction—rows and columns of spots become the dawn breaking through thick morning air.

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

This untitled work from 2012 is a print originally made as part of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art’s artist limited edition series. It’s contrasting dark and vibrant tones presage his later series of works, exhibited at L. A.’s Hammer Museum as Scorched Earth. These larger works share a map-like quality, looking like aerial views of some scarred urban landscape.