Angelus is an investigation into Gregory Michael Hernandez’s interest in the human impulse to map, interpret and represent our environment and ourselves. He is particularly interested in the ways that visual information is manipulated to correspond with bias and assumptions. Angelus explores the contrast between the built environment and the empty canvas through the dichotomy between the “city” (specific locations within Los Angeles) and the “desert” (the wilderness east of Twentynine Palms, California in the Mojave Desert). The city of Los Angeles features prominently, both as subject and, more literally, an object: broken sidewalks and curbs were pulverized to rubble and reconstituted with Portland Cement to create paintings and a sculpture.
