About Samuel
Samuel S. Hernandez (b. 2000, Mexico City) is an oil painter based in Washington, D.C. whose work investigates urban memory and psychological architecture through multi-layered surfaces. His practice engages the specific material properties of oil paint—translucency, extended drying time, and gradual surface accumulation—to create visual records of durational processes.
Hernandez builds richly layered surfaces over weeks and months, exploiting oil paint's extended drying time to apply translucent layers, then returning to scrape, fade, and build upon nearly-dry surfaces. Small brushes and unconventional tools create deliberate marks that accumulate into atmospheric fields where recognizable forms emerge and recede within painterly grounds.
This methodical approach positions the work between representation and dissolution—where figuration negotiates with abstraction through material process. Drawing from Washington D.C.'s urban landscape, historical symbolism, and psychological frameworks, his paintings examine how memory and experience materialize through the act of sustained mark-making.
Artist Statement
“I investigate how urban environments and psychological states materialize through the physical properties of oil paint. Working primarily in Washington, D.C., I build richly layered surfaces over weeks and months, allowing each layer to nearly dry before returning to the work. This extended process creates a visual archaeology—where scraped, faded, and accumulated marks record the duration of making.
My work negotiates between figuration and atmospheric dissolution, where recognizable forms—architecture, crowds, interior spaces—emerge and recede within painterly fields. The tension between deliberate mark-making and gradual erasure mirrors how memory functions: simultaneously building and deteriorating.
Rather than capturing moments, I'm interested in how oil's material properties can register the passing of time itself. Each painting becomes a record of sustained attention, where process and subject converge.”
Creative Process
Each painting develops through a methodical process of layering, drying, and mark accumulation over weeks or months. I exploit oil paint's extended drying time—applying translucent layers, then returning to scrape, fade, and build upon nearly-dry surfaces.
Small brushes and unconventional tools create deliberate marks that accumulate into atmospheric fields. This approach positions the work between representation and dissolution—recognizable forms emerge from painterly grounds, then recede back into surface.
The process mirrors how memory and urban experience function: simultaneously building and eroding, present and absent. I'm interested in oil paint's unique capacity to record duration—where the material evidence of extended making becomes inseparable from the work's subject.
Exhibitions & Recognition
- 2025
District 51 Show, Touchstone Gallery, Washington, D.C.
- 2025
Le Salon 2025, The Artists Gallery, Frederick, MD
- 2025
Featured in Penn Journal of Arts and Sciences
- 2025
Referenced in Washington City Paper
Work is held in private collections. Hernandez's practice has developed through engagement with Washington D.C.'s emerging artist community and participation in regional exhibitions exploring contemporary figuration and material process.
Studio Visits & Inquiries
Available for acquisition inquiries, commissions, and exhibition opportunities. Studio visits welcome by appointment.
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