Solo Exhibition: Break with me, Foundation.
Pratt MWP Gallery | Munson Williams Proctor Institute
Utica, NY
On view from February 2 - March 3, 2023
My Exhibition Statement:
Break with me, Foundation is a physical expression of Hernease Davis’s psychological process of healing from a painful familial upbringing. Using camera-less techniques, cyanotypes on fabric, silver gelatin photograms, sound, and crochet, Hernease has created a site-specific installation that translates a private and difficult process into a space which catalyzes connections with others around notions of care, relations and deeply personal histories.
Hernease uses the flexibility of photography to respond to and document the arduous process of self-repair. She uses darkroom paper or cyanotype treated fabrics as a surface on which to lie down, cry, meditate or nap. She sometimes grips the paper, physically exchanging her distress with the material before using the cracked silver gelatin surface to make a portrait. She improvises crochet stitches into a panel of paper, grafting in an inherited skill that brings her peace. Hernease works instinctually and slowly, developing her photograms over the course of hours in the darkroom and her sun-sourced cyanotypes over the course of months. She chooses to leave portions of her cyanotypes undeveloped so that they may continue to shift and respond to the environment in reference to her ongoing transformation in healing from deep wounds.
Music is integral to Hernease’s recovery, and so it is integrated into her installation. She creates sound pieces she calls Hums, by layering and rotating her voice around a chord or musical key she enjoys. Hums are rich, textured soundscapes that accompany and guide Hernease through periods of depression, anxiety and grief.
Break with me, Foundation is an invitation to go deep. Her multi-media works embrace the artistic practice’s ability to be a surface of psychological and interpersonal communion, connection, expression and freedom.
Break with me, Foundation.
Pratt MWP Gallery
Feb 2 - Mar 2, 2023
I visited and photographed Sam Gilliam’s piece, Double Merge, while it was installed at Dia:Beacon. Now, I’m taking those negatives into the darkroom to make a kind of merge of my own. I’m using them to make photograms/photographs. Some of these are self-portraits. They are all experiments and excuses to spend time with the photographs I made of Gilliam’s installation. Gilliam is deeply influential to me, and his work has helped me reconcile with some of my recent frustrations with photography and photographic conversations. Gilliam was deeply concerned with the surface of his works, approaching them with improvisation and instinctual gestures. The longer I make and the more I learn about Gilliam, I’m starting to see a convergence of our processes. I’m going a long for very different reasons. My concerns with photographic surfaces exist for very different reasons. His work is helping me. I’m frustrated with photography’s ability to halt interpretations below the surface. I’m fascinated with Gilliam’s depth requiring our reading to remain there. I’m frustrated with the representational, indexical expectations of photographic work. I’m fascinated with Gilliam’s embrace and ceaseless interrogation of art through abstraction. I am frustrated with conversations around photographic art that want to hold on to the familiar. I am fascinated by how free I feel in the presence of Gilliam’s paintings. I am free to feel, think, question, and enjoy however I want. I want my work to embrace, challenge, invite, absorb and draw in. I love photography. I’d like to think that that’s another moment of convergence with Sam Gilliam. Sam Gilliam was not thinking of me and my feelings of freedom when he made and installed Double Merge. That’s not the point. He’s helping me with my frustrations. His work gives me hope. My hope is for freedom in my surfaces.
Cracked silver gelatin fiber, 8”x10” | 2022
Cracked silver gelatin fiber, 8”x10” | 2022
Cracked silver gelatin fiber, 8”x10” | 2022
Cracked silver gelatin fiber, 8”x10” | 2022
Cracked silver gelatin fiber, 8”x10” | 2022
Cracked silver gelatin fiber, 8”x10” | 2022
Cracked silver gelatin fiber, 8”x10” | 2022
Cracked silver gelatin fiber, 8”x10” | 2022
Cracked silver gelatin fiber, 8”x10” | 2022
Cracked silver gelatin fiber, 8”x10” | 2022
“…new love.” is a growing self-portrait series. I am selectively developing and felting cyanotypes on silk, linen and canvas, leaving the undeveloped portions of the fabric to continually change and react to the environment.
“…new love.” evolved out of A Womb of My Own (Mistakes Were Made in Development). I am continuing to craft my practice into an environment that allows me to confront my personal experience of trauma. As I change, the work changes. As the work changes, it changes me. “…new love.” is a mark of a new phase in my healing process.
This is an ongoing series. I will post as I go and as we evolve.
Group Exhibition: Permissions | Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, 2020-2021
Group Exhibition: Permissions | Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, 2020-2021
In this series I lovingly call “Womb”, I am combining analog photographic processes with performance and craft to create work that heavily emphasizes self-care through artistic process. The body of work consists of photograms, cyanotypes, sound installation, crocheted pillows, crocheted blankets, and performance. All of my photograms were and will be made in my living room. In complete darkness, I set up my paper and I lay down. This 48”x60” space is a surface for expression, meditation, anger, rest, etc. When I am ready, I trigger my flash. Each panel is developed individually to complete the image, but also serves as another quiet space of self-care.
Silver gelatin fiber photograms (9), 48”x60”, 2017
Silver gelatin fiber photograms (9), 48”x60”, 2014
A walk-thru with audio of my recent exhibition at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester.
Silver gelatin fiber photograms (4), 32”x40”, 2019
Silver gelatin fiber photograms (9), 48”x60”, 2017
Silver gelatin fiber photograms (6), ~36 x 65”, 2019
These pieces are a new direction for my current series, A Womb of My Own (Mistakes Were Made in Development). Here, I am crocheting around and into photographic paper. Instead of using stitching patterns developed by other craftspeople, I sit with my paper and improvise my own stitching directions until I have encased the paper. I then use the paper as a space to make my photograms. The working title I am giving to this new direction is Bare With Me, Foundation.
Silver Gelatin Photogram, Yarn, 16” x 20” | 2021
Silver Gelatin Photogram, Yarn, Cyanotype, 16” x 20” | 2021
Works from the series, Bare With Me Foundation.
Medium: Silver Gelatin Photogram with Copper Cotton Crocheted Yarn
Dimensions: 16x20
Year: 2017
Installation Image from Houston Center for Photography
Medium: Silver Gelatin Photogram with Gold Acrylic Crocheted Yarn
Dimensions: 16x20x0.25
Year: 2017
Medium: Silver Gelatin Photogram with White Cotton Crocheted Yarn
Dimensions: 16 x 20 x 1.5
Year: 2019
Medium: Silver Gelatin Photogram with Copper Cotton Crocheted Yarn
Dimensions: 16 x 20 x 1.5
Year: 2019
Medium: Silver Gelatin Photogram with Copper Cotton Crocheted Yarn
Dimensions: 16x20x.25
Year: 2018
Medium: Silver Gelatin Photogram with Copper Cotton Crocheted Yarn
Dimensions: 16x20x.25
Year: 2017
Silver Gelatin Photogram, Yarn, 16” x 20” | 2021
Silver Gelatin Photogram, Yarn, 16” x 20” | 2021
After my fifth move in two years in New York City, I began collecting black plastic bags from the streets of my then home, Harlem. Collecting them gave me a sense of ownership in yet another unfamiliar neighborhood. They often floated, untethered to their origins - the way I felt. These still life images were my attempt to ground them (and myself).
In this series, “Flesh Against”, I used black plastic bags I collected from the street. I grafted them into my darkroom practice, using them as filters over my self-portraits. These objects are dark, yet translucent. The final image is a melding of my hand, and the nature of these objects.