Hernan Bas, Red Herring, 2004, courtesy of
Saatchi Gallery, London

Hernan Bas, Fitting In, 2004, courtesy of Daniel
Reich Gallery, New York

Not Will and Grace
Hernan Bas at Daniel Reich Gallery

By Dan Tranberg

Twenty-four-year-old Miami-based artist Hernan Bas is one of a growing number of emerging artists who makes figurative paintings a la Henry Darger, working in an awkward painterly style that blatantly favors psychologically rich narratives over technical mastery. But unlike his stylistic counterparts (Elizabeth Peyton, for instance) Bas delves into a highly charged social landscape, one occupied over the past decade or two by writers such as Dennis Cooper and filmmakers such as Gregg Araki. Bas himself cites earlier references: Oscar Wilde and French novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans. Either way, he uses his work to wrestle with a seemingly unavoidable queer pedigree.

His recent solo show at Daniel Reich Gallery, Sometimes with One I Love, offered a dozen recent works in which slender teenaged boys hover in a state between connection to and alienation from their environments. Fitting In, a 31 x 24-inch painting on wood panel, was a clear standout. A solitary figure stands in a shallow pool of water, mimicking the pose of a flamingo while a large group of the flamboyant pink birds carry on without noticing him. As with many of Bas’ works, the boy’s surroundings can be seen as a stand-in for a conventional social network, one with which the boy may want to blend, but obviously can’t. Right Place Wrong Time uses a similar strategy; a boy shows up at a secluded rocky beach, only to be left alone standing in the rain, holding a red umbrella.

Such a sense of alienation and frustration is in many ways glamorized by Bas. Confused and depressed as his characters often seem, they also imply a certain cool detachment from the increasingly mainstream world of gay assimilation. In this sense, Bas revels in the psychological ambiguity that arises from not belonging to the relatively new world of gay normalcy.

Other works in the show depict more adventurous romantic scenarios. For You It Has Come to This shows a group of boys about to engage in fencing match. The setting could be a cave or the cellar of a castle—a scene right out of a Hardy Boys’ mystery. Bas often draws upon such innocently homoerotic sources; previous works use images from Boy Scout manuals. Here again, he seems to be mining popular culture for subversive behavioral clues, dissecting common imagery to reveal hidden implications.

On a formal level, Bas’ newest paintings are not as immediately appealing as his works on paper, which were featured prominently in the recent Whitney Biennial. Some of them become so clumsy that they simply appear amateurish. A mixed-media installation in the rear of the gallery was awkward to the point of failure, combining oversized theater props with gravestone rubbings and Christmas lights in a cluttered pile of chaotic symbols for death and drama.

Still, Bas has the potential to emerge as a truly distinctive voice amidst a sea of new figurative artists. Like the rarely seen gay-themed works of Charles Demuth, his best paintings possess a tangible sense of an individual grappling with sexuality both within and beyond conventional models of behavior.

Hernan Bas: Sometimes with One I Love
September 18 – October 31, 2004
Daniel Reich Gallery, New York

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This article appeared in Angle Magazine, Issue #17, November / December, 2004

© 2007 Dan Tranberg. All rights reserved.