Alexander Hernandez was NUMU's Inaugural Artist in Residence, exhibiting his work in the 2022 exhibition RETAZOS. Hernandez is a mixed-media artist who currently resides in San Francisco, CA, working as a social worker finding housing for displaced LGBTQ youth in San Francisco. Born in Huajuapan de Leon, Oaxaca- Mexico, and raised in Grand Junction, CO, he received his BFA (2007) in Painting and Drawing from Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design in Denver, CO, and an MFA in Studio Art (2012) from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. He creates soft forms and layered quilted collages of textiles to represent stories of resilient individuals dealing with the experience of being othered, isolated, and excluded because of their identities. Hernandez often repurposes found materials and other textiles with motifs and colors that speak to the recombination of cultures and frames of reference that shape our complex modern lives. His previous work, “STAYIN’ POSITIVE,” is a series of textile portraits investigating the identities of Latinx and other people of color living with HIV. Hernández has participated in art residencies at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA; San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, San Jose, CA; Root Division in San Francisco, CA; Elsewhere Museum in Greensboro, NC; Mark Rothko Art Center in Latvia; and the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, among others.

Learn more: watching his Virtual Artist Talk or drag performance he curated to compliment RETAZOS.