Mystics and Mysteries:
Courtesy of Ana Maria Hernando
Ana Maria Hernando’s Flower Power
Artist and poet, Ana Maria Hernando creates colorful paintings, drawings, prints and installations inspired from natural elements and the world around her. She uses flowers as an underlying theme, which reflect upon life’s mysteries and imperfections. Her work is sensual, quiet and beautiful. Ana says, “Flowers appeal to me as layers, and the layers of my paintings arise in me as flowers unfolding. The vulnerability and vibration of them startle me awake and connect me with death. I find these flowers in my garden, in the embroidered mantones of the Spanish women, my grandmothers. They seduce me, and compel me to move the brush around edges and shades, and pleasure flows from the canvas, to the colors, to my fingers.”
Born in Buenos Aires, and now a resident of Boulder Colorado, she incorporates designs from architecture, fashion and craft, and uses them as cutouts for her works on wood and paper. When asked where her love for poetry and art stemmed from, she spoke of her favorite English teacher who would come to her house weekly from the age of four. She would ask Ana to choose a word to write, copy and draw it’s meaning. "This was paradise for me, I would get lost in that world.”
As a teen, Ana loved theater and reading plays; eventually she worked as a teacher and translator. It was in 2005 where she was invited to Peru to translate the powerful teachings of Peruvian Andean mystic and poet Don Américo Yábar. This was a pure joy for Ana as they would read poetry until all hours into the evening. She was captured by the beauty of Peru: the people, the colors, the language, the textiles and the poetic nature of the country. She says, “When they speak, it is so beautiful. They invite the stars, the earth and the moon."
Ana's poetry blossomed while visiting Don Americo’s ancestral home just outside of Cuzco, in a small town called Mollomarka. He took her to his home, which has been in his family for generations, called Salka'wasi, meaning the "undomesticated house.” She was overwhelmed by the natural beauty of this place: the rivers, the eagles, the hummingbirds, and bountiful gardens. Ana remembers sitting outside of this house, where her words just poured out like a river. This country and village has been central to the inspiration behind her installations and poetry for years to come.
In response to Mollomarka and the relationships that had formed, Ana began working on a series of installations using hand-crocheted petticoats, which she bought individually from the women of this village. Her piece entitled "La Montaña" (The Mountain) stands in my mind as the petticoats pile ceiling high, becoming a multi colored mountain of vibrant shapes and forms. Hernando says, "It's cold, so the women wear these petticoats, they carry babies on their backs and they move like flowers up and down the mountain." She piles the petticoats high in the form of a mountain representing the mountains that are home to these women, and they signify their strength, resilience, and spiritual connection to the earth. The sounds of the mountain birds play beautifully in the background, capturing the essence of the forests and the nourishing air of Peru. She says this piece is like “paying homage to the women. I see them as the pillars of their world."
Her piece entitled, “The Mountain Brings Us Boats Full of Lilies” uses petticoats which become a river of bright, unturned blossoms, like flowers floating on water. She says, “It’s a river that nourishes us.” Polymer-resin discs embedded with embroidered flowers surround the petticoats, were hand made by a group of Argentinian cloister nuns, with whom Hernando who Hernando has worked for years. "Again, it is about the women's work and how invisible it is. This piece is about all the women in the world who make it happen.” Every year, Ana returns to Salka'wasi, deepening her relationships as well as giving back by raising money to improve the local schools and clinic. Ana adds, “Giving back is what make this process whole.”
For more information about Ana’s work please visit, www.anamariahernando.com
