The word “hyphenated” is defined by Merriam-Webster as “being an individual or unit of mixed or
diverse background or composition.”
Each year, the School of Visual Art and Design (SVAD) invites visiting artists to campus to exhibit their
work and share their ideas, influences, research, and motivations with students, faculty, and the public.
This fall SVAD is partnering with the McKissick Museum to showcase the works of Dan Hernandez and
Arturo Rodriguez at the University’s museum.
Both of the artists in this exhibition are identified culturally as Hyphenated-Americans (Rodriguez,
Cuban-American and Hernandez, Mexican-American). While the exhibition does not expressly examine
these identities, or the social connotations associated with being hyphenated, it does explore the
concept of converging cultures more broadly. A central aspect in both artists work is the act of
connecting disparate cultural parts. The work presented in this exhibition relies heavily on appropriation
and collage/montage. Both artists work with a variety of borrowed imagery ranging from video games to
pre-renaissance painting (Hernandez) and from cartoons to American home décor (Rodriguez). In their
working processes, both artists combine these source materials in different ways to create new visual
forms. Much like hyphenated words, these forms function as the product of their parts, but also suggest
new meaning through their unique composition. The technical processes of both artists can also be
described as “hyphenated”. Hernandez’s work often bridges the gap between digital and analog
processes and Rodriguez’s work crosses boundaries from printmaking, to painting and drawing.