{"id":348639,"date":"2026-06-05T22:07:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T22:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/348639\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T22:07:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T22:07:16","slug":"people-we-meet-joel-hernandez-wont-be-your-heritage-month-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/348639\/","title":{"rendered":"People We Meet: Joel Hernandez won\u2019t be your Heritage Month artist\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joel Hernandez, standing in his bright Mission District studio, ruminated on the apocalyptic day in 2020 when wildfire smoke and smog blocked the sun. \u201cRemember that day in San Francisco when the sky was pink?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking out the window, and it\u2019s just the most beautiful pink sky I have ever seen \u2014\u00a0and there was a rainbow that was going across it, too,\u201d he said. \u201cBut underneath it all, I couldn\u2019t feel more underwater.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hernandez felt a mix of emotions that day, witnessing a \u201ccotton candy rainbow, Lisa Frank<\/a> moment\u201d while grappling with his friend\u2019s cancer diagnosis, the destructive fires and the pandemic lockdown. It has become a sentiment he explores regularly in his sculpture and papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 art.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AJoel Hernandez\u2019s show \u201cAt Least We\u2019re Damned Together\u201d opens on June 5, 2026. Photo by Eleni Balakrishnan.<\/p>\n

Duality is a recurring theme in Hernandez\u2019s life and features heavily in his solo exhibition, \u201cAt Least We\u2019re Damned Together,\u201d coming to the Tenderloin on Saturday. <\/p>\n

Watching everything from immigration raids to an AI takeover this past year, Hernandez said his artwork has darkened from the \u201ccute\u201d show he planned to create.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In one piece, \u201cSilver Lining,\u201d a brightly colored rainbow with a glittering silver lining arches over a glistening body of water. A man\u2019s face emerges from \u2014\u00a0or submerges into \u2014 the blue. <\/p>\n

In another, a rendering of Gooble, the lovable ghost cartoon from the children\u2019s TV show \u201cYo Gabba Gabba!\u201d opens his mouth to reveal a man\u2019s grimacing, red-eyed face behind the mask.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ASilver Lining, by Joel Hernandez. Photo by Eleni Balakrishnan.<\/p>\n

Each mask, he said, represents a moment \u2014\u00a0whether his own or others\u2019. Afterwards, he can let it go.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like I\u2019m shedding it from myself,\u201d he clarified. \u201cIt\u2019s not to conceal.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hernandez also hopes to break past the binary, or any box the world might place him in. In another sculpture, the grinning visage of a pi\u00f1ata is torn open and a distressed, crying man\u2019s face peers through.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes as an artist, I feel like I\u2019m only contacted when there\u2019s a gay show coming up,\u201d he said. Gallery owners will call him: \u2018\u201cHey, it\u2019s Pride. You\u2019re gay. You want to do a show?\u2019 or, \u2018Hey, it\u2019s November, we\u2019re gonna do something for Hispanic Heritage Month,\u2019\u201d Hernandez said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a fashionable object for the month. I am a working, living artist, that\u2019s year-round. I\u2019m also gay and Hispanic in April.\u201d (This show just happens to fall in Pride month.)<\/p>\n

Hernandez grew up in a Mexican border town and moved to the United States as a child. His art has consumed much of his life, so his life comes out in his work: Mexican motifs and color schemes appear in most of his sculptures, references to the discrimination he still faces as a gay man.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a two-part sculpture, a shrouded golden figure \u2014\u00a0the \u201ctech overlord\u201d \u2014 holds the earth in their hand.\u00a0By contrast, the tiny faces of \u201cthe working class\u201d peer through the cracks of the fissuring pedestal upon which the figure stands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Hernandez, it raises the question: \u201cWho do you praise?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m completely surrounded by AI right now,\u201d he said, gesturing at the city outside his windows and contemplating the dozens of masks and sculptures from this and past shows that fill his studio walls. (On the couch, his dog snoozed with its face pressed up against a calavera-style mask three times its size.) <\/p>\n

In the middle of near-trillion-dollar tech valuations<\/a> and hundreds of millions of dollars in AI money flooding the city, \u201cIt just feels so weird to be sitting here making little papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9, like, one strip at a time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his rare time not creating, he likes to take long walks and soak in the city he has called home for nearly a decade. If it\u2019s not seven miles, he says, it\u2019s not a walk.<\/p>\n

\"APhoto by Eleni Balakrishnan.<\/p>\n

The strolls remind him: \u201cI\u2019m just this little ant,\u201d he said, smiling distantly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the collection is \u201coverwhelmed with feelings,\u201d Hernandez said it\u2019s all open to interpretation. For his part, he tries to \u201cfind silver linings in everything\u201d and offer \u201ca reminder of love.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wanted to tell a story of just people having this moment of: \u2018Shit, everything around us is feeling a little bit hectic, but at least we got each other,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThe house may be on fire, but at least I\u2019m holding onto you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The \u201cnamesake\u201d for the show is just that. Two men cling to each other, naked, eyes closed. It doesn\u2019t matter that they\u2019re in the belly of a snake.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joel Hernandez-Millen\u2019s exhibit \u201cAt Least We\u2019re Damned Together\u201d opens on June 6 at Moth Belly gallery, at 912 Larkin St.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joel Hernandez, standing in his bright Mission District studio, ruminated on the apocalyptic day in 2020 when wildfire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[5282,18362,108307,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-348639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-arts","tag-people-we-meet","tag-people-we-meet-tenderloin","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}