Artist Adán Hernandez‘s work was collected by Hollywood celebs, including the likes of Cheech Marin and the one and only Helen Mirren. Still, most recognized his artwork more likely from the paintings he created for the 1993 movie “Blood In Blood Out“.
Before “Blood In Blood Out,” Hernandez was a down on his luck artist. After the film came out, the monetary value of his work jumped, & 2 of his paintings were first bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for its collection. One of his art pieces from the film is in the San Antonio Museum of Art collection.
“All my dreams came true in an avalanche,” he mentioned in the interview with video producer Dan Segovia submitted last year to Chased By Hounds, a Facebook fan page dedicated to the movie.
Marin published a picture of the 2 of them on Instagram Monday, writing, “There is no purer voice from the barrio than Adán Hernandez. He was the artistic soul of Chicano noir.” Some of Hernandez’s work was included in”Chicano Visions,” a touring exhibition drawn from Marin’s collection that started at the San Antonio Museum of Art in 2002.
As news of the artist’s death reached Hollywood, his family received condolence calls from some people who worked on “Blood In Blood Out,” his brother Armando mentioned, including director Taylor Hackford & costar Benjamin Bratt.
The 1993 film follows three youthful gang members in East Los Angeles whose lives abide by divergent paths as adults– one goes to prison (Damian Chapa), one becomes a cop (Bratt) & one becomes an artist (Jesse Borrego).
Hernandez was hired for the job after a production designer happened to see some of his work in a San Antonio gallery window.
Originally, the team had considered shooting the film at this said gallery. Hackford asked Hernandez to make more than thirty paintings ascribed to Borrego’s character. He regularly made a painting a day to fulfill the tight deadline. In an interview, he recalled that he was working so fast & so long that his hands were cramped and his vision was impaired.
In addition to providing the paintings for the movie, ” he appeared in a small scene. And then he taught Borrego how to mix paint & how to hold a paintbrush. Borrego, a fellow San Antonian, also used a great deal of time in Hernandez’s studio, watching him work & folding details from these hours Into his performance.
They became intimate friends. And they had expected to one day open up a Chicano art museum on the West Side. Borrego, to this day, expects to make that happen, with pieces by Hernandez as a centerpiece.
“But it’s going to be sad, looking at all types of his work that’s going to be past work, not the stuff he still wanted to paint,” he mentioned. “His work will live on after him, & I think it’s going to be remarkable for art history one day.”
Independent curator Joseph Bravo, which was well-acquainted with Hernandez for more than 20 years, sees the late artist as one among the biggies of all Chicano art, putting him on the same degree as Mel Casas, Jesse Treviño, and César Martínez.
The movie is what catapulted him into that tier, Bravo stated.
“Those paintings were tremendously important in the Chicano imagination because where were you going to see paintings in the barrio? There were no museums, no retail art galleries,” he mentioned.
The film relayed the message that being an artist is a possibility for Latinos, ” he mentioned. And Hernandez’s paintings for the film captured optimistic images.
“Yes, they dressed the way they dressed; they looked like cholos,” Bravo stated. “But he humanized them, and they weren’t simply caricatures any longer.”
Later, Hernandez’s work shifted to Chicano noir, darker, heavier, more disturbing paintings. In a similar vein, he also composed and illustrated”Los Vryosos: A Tale From the Varrio,” a crime novel published in 2006.
César Martinez, who resided right next door to Hernandez, stated he was intrigued with his work the 1st time he saw it, and the two artists broke a friendship.
“Like me, he tended to be very private & needed privacy to do his work, but was affable in-person & very easy to hang out with,” Martínez stated via email. “His passing leaves a void.”
Hernandez used the earlier years of his life in Robstown, by which he & his family worked in the cotton fields. When he was 9, they proceeded to San Antonio’s West Side. He discovered an affinity for art at Edgewood High School and studied at San Antonio School for a while. However, he was put off with the emphasis on classical Greco-Roman forms — he didn’t see much of a link in the middle of that and the Chicano experiences that he wanted to capture in his work — so he fell out. After that, he was largely self-taught.
He encouraged up-and-coming artists along the way & inspired many of them.
“My brother & I grew up idolizing 3 San Antonio artists as kids: César Martínez, Jesse Treviño, & Adán Hernandez, the holy trinity of San Anto Art in the 1980s & early’90s,” Rigoberto Luna, an artist & curator of both Presa House Gallery, composed in an email. “I was lucky to meet Adán through the late Manuel Castillo. My brother and my first art gallery show were at Adán’s gallery El Otro Ojo. He was an original, an innovator, & a torchbearer for Chicano art.”
Painter Gerardo Quetzatl Garcia remembered introducing himself as a teen to Hernandez, worried about meeting the artist who had made the “Blood In Blood Out” paintings.
“Never one to belittle or condescend, his huge skill seemed to have a small influence on how he treated others, and I feel that’s one of the many things that will be missed by his passing,” Garcia stated.
Hernandez inspired Eddie Salinas, his second cousin, to go after a music career.
“He was an amazing artist and activist for the Chicano culture, & he’s influenced thousands, if not millions of Latino artists, myself being living proof that his art and stance in the culture has inspired many to strive for life outside of the barrios that a lot of us struggle to get out of,” Salinas stated.
“He opened the door & showed that it’s possible to pursue passions, especially within the art realm.”
And then he was all the time game to talk about “Blood In Blood Out.” When Segovia reached out to him via Facebook about five years ago and asked if he can interview him about the movie, Hernandez responded right away, inviting him to film their chat in his studio.
“That isn’t an uncommon story,” Segovia mentioned. “If you talk to almost anyone who was a big fan of his work, he extended an invite. That’s the kind of male he was. He was very open to the community, very willing to share his story.”
Segovia stated many opinions on the “Chased By Hounds” page have to do with Hernandez’s work.
“It’s wild to see others tattooing his art on their body,” he mentioned. “That’s what those images mean to people.”
As important as the film is to many, including Borrego, Hernandez’s influence goes beyond it, the actor stated.
“His work is very remarkable & prolific beyond the cult status of ‘Blood In Blood Out,”’ he stated. “We lost a good one.”
He is survived by his kids, Adam Hernandez, James Hernandez, Cory Hernandez, Italia Lane and Clayton Hernandez, & from his siblings, Gloria Treviño, Robert Hernandez, David Hernandez, Ruben Hernandez, Armando Hernandez & Bert Hernandez.