To create is to offer oneself. Our creative potential and our capacity of self-offering become the driving forces behind our growth as spiritual creatures. Like a tree, art is in perpetual offering. For every fruit or seed that is given away, new sprouts grow in the old limbs and a new blossom covers the whole tree. Painting, photography, literature, installations, cinema, music, they are all connected in my work; they are all nourished by the same sap. There is no breaking point. There is no rupture. I do not believe in ruptures. For each new piece of work I have shaped, it was already breathing in the womb of my previous creations. Hence, it is not the sterile quest of originality what moves me. Rather, I conceive originality as a consequence of sincerity. Only, and only, by being honest can an artist be original. More than a misleading quest of knowledge, I conceive art as an emotional response to our contingent reality and a means to enhance ourselves spiritually.
Dashel Hernandez.
Cover image photo courtesy of Vincent Long.