Stipendiemotivering:
Berenice Janice Hernandez Hernandez (Master åk 2) har genom sin praktik visat prov på att hon har en förmåga att på ett mycke insiktsfullt sätt förena både ett visuella uttrycket med ett conceptuellt innehåll. I sitt examensarbete – Phantom Limbs/Ghost Architecure – lyfter hon och sätter i kontext den aktuella frågan exilens väsen utifrån sin egen erfarenhet. Hon gör på ett tekniskt avancerat och innovativt sätt vad gäller den keramiska gestaltningen.
Berenice Hernández works with ceramic sculptures and installations that function as models of an imaginary architecture.
In her work the act of constructing and deconstructing is fundamental. It starts with layers of clay that she methodically turns into large blocks. She then cuts the blocks into smaller pieces. Sometimes the cuts are clean and precise, other times they are crude, resulting in blocks that crumble into fragments. She then uses the blocks as a library of materials for her sculptures, ready to be used in a never-ending cycle of building, deconstruction and rebuilding.
An important part of her practice is the idea that solidity is illusory. Everything shifts. Her sculptures are as much about the cracks, the broken lines, and the flakes that fall off as they are about the structures themselves. For her what is lost is as present as what remains. Her work then becomes an architecture of what was, what might have been, and what is.