Can a Painted Mask Tell the Truth? Artist Spotlight Liz Hernández

“Her figures multiply inside themselves, as if a single face could hold an entire chorus.”

The Face That Refuses to Stay One Thing

Liz Hernández’s portraits behave like living mirrors. They hold several selves at once, quietly rearranging meaning while you look.

Wide view of a red-and-black tiled mural at SFMOMA featuring symbols, text blocks, and figurative motifs across an entire gallery wall. — **Liz Hernandez**, large-scale mural at SFMOMA. Photo by Katherine Dutiel. Image courtesy of the artist.

Recent projects at SFMOMA, ICA LA and Pt.2 Gallery show how she expands this language across scale and material.

In each context the figures keep their calm, wide eyed presence, but something changes in how they inhabit space.

Outdoor mural at ICA LA composed of red, black, and cream squares with hand-painted figures and text, installed across a brick wall. — **Liz Hernandez**, mural installation at ICA LA. Photo by Jeff McLane / ICA LA. Image courtesy of the artist.

Close-up of the ICA LA mural showing a butterfly-like female figure and hand-painted Spanish text blocks on brick. — **Liz Hernandez**, mural detail at ICA LA. Photo by Jeff McLane / ICA LA. Image courtesy of the artist.

Angled view of the full ICA LA courtyard mural with red, cream, and black illustrated squares and string lights above. — **Liz Hernandez**, mural installation at ICA LA, alternate view. Photo by Jeff McLane / ICA LA. Image courtesy of the artist.

The murals breathe like public speech, the paintings feel more intimate and slow, the clay works anchor everything in the weight of the body.

What stays constant is the sense that identity is restless.

Liz Hernandez standing in a studio surrounded by large painted portraits featuring mask-like composite faces. — **Liz Hernandez**, portrait with works from *Population of the Mask*. Photo by Ryan Whelan. Image courtesy of the artist.

Artist painting a large pink background portrait composed of nested faces, with one central large face containing smaller faces within. — **Liz Hernandez**, studio view while painting a large mask-portrait, 2025. Photo by the artist. Image courtesy of the artist.

A Language of Multiplying Selves

Hernández builds her compositions in layers. Faces appear inside bigger faces, hands open toward unexpected versions of the same person, and small bodies curl into the architecture of a head.

White gallery hallway filled with large mask-portrait paintings, each showing fragmented or repeated facial elements. — **Liz Hernandez**, *Population of the Mask* installation view at Jack Hanley Gallery. Photo by the gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

White gallery with two paintings: one tall red piece featuring stacked masked faces, and one horizontal canvas with multiple mask-like portraits. — **Liz Hernandez**, *Population of the Mask*, installation view at Jack Hanley Gallery. Photo by the gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

The effect is disarming. You sense memory pushing against the edges of a portrait, asking to be seen from more than one direction.

The tones are warm pinks, browns and creams, but beneath that softness lies something sharper, a recognition that the self is rarely neat.

The work does not explain this. It simply lets you witness the shifting.

Two framed black-and-white portraits with mask-like profiles hanging side by side on a white gallery wall. — **Liz Hernandez**, *Population of the Mask*, installation view at Jack Hanley Gallery. Photo by the gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

Ventriloquism of the Interior

In the PDF her practice is described as a kind of ventriloquism, a quiet collaboration with the voices that live inside us .

Hernández treats these interior presences not as ghosts but as companions. The paintings feel like negotiations, a moment where the inner chorus leans forward to speak.

**Liz Hernandez**, studio process, documenting drawing and painting. Images courtesy of the artist.

You are not asked to decode a fixed message. You are invited to stay with the ambiguity, to notice how one figure might be ancestral, another imagined, another still forming.

It becomes a portrait of becoming rather than a portrait of being.

**Liz Hernandez**, studio portraits with works on paper. Photos by Brianna Kalajian. Images courtesy of the artist.

When Murals Carry Memory

The mural works widen her vocabulary. At SFMOMA the grid structure of lungs, trees, words and symbols reads like a collective breathing exercise.

White gallery with terracotta sculptures on pedestals, surrounded by large figurative and botanical paintings. — **Liz Hernandez**, *Talismán*, installation view at Pt.2 Gallery. Photo by Pt.2 Gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

Alt text: Terracotta sculptures and framed monochrome drawings arranged across a bright gallery corner. — **Liz Hernandez**, *Talismán*, alternate installation view at Pt.2 Gallery. Photo by Pt.2 Gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

ICA LA extends this rhythm outdoors, where the red and black palette catches sunlight and shadow throughout the day.

Both murals center care, migration and ancestral knowledge, but in the tone of a public archive.

Large canvas showing seven figures outlined and filled with small purple flowers, with a stool and painting tools in front. — **Liz Hernandez**, studio view with large work in progress. Photo by the artist. Image courtesy of the artist.

They feel woven rather than painted, as if each block holds a story offered for communal reading.

The shift from studio intimacy to civic scale gives her symbolism new resonance.

Gallery view showing lavender-toned paintings, a dress sculpture, and a visitor walking toward a purple wall text. — **Liz Hernandez**, *Where the Purple Flowers Cry*, installation view at Pt.2 Gallery, mobile preview. Photo by Pt.2 Gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

Minimal white-walled gallery with framed works hung along both sides and a small table in the center displaying drawings and objects. — **Liz Hernandez**, *Where the Purple Flowers Cry*, installation view at Pt.2 Gallery. Photo by Pt.2 Gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

Clay as a Keeper of Stories

Clay sits close to Hernández’s drawings and paintings. Terracotta heads covered in floral impressions echo the tenderness and complexity of her two dimensional figures.

Terracotta sculpture covered in textured floral elements placed on a pedestal, with framed drawings on the white gallery wall behind. — **Liz Hernandez**, *Talismán* installation view at Pt.2 Gallery. Photo by Pt.2 Gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

Sculptures shaped like vertical organic forms in terracotta placed in front of two paintings depicting braided figures and botanical drawings. — **Liz Hernandez**, *Talismán*, installation view featuring terracotta sculptures and two large paintings. Photo by Pt.2 Gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

Clay remembers touch. It records pressure, slight shifts of weight, the temperature of a hand. Her sculptures carry these traces without sentimentality.

They feel grounded, steady, aware of their own presence. Even when quiet, they hold the same multilayered identity that threads through her entire practice.

Artist standing in front of a large black-and-white canvas, painting floral patterns onto a figure’s dress. — **Liz Hernandez**, portrait while painting a large monochrome work in her studio. Photo by the artist. Image courtesy of the artist.

About Liz Hernández

Liz Hernández is a Mexican born, Oakland, California based artist whose work spans painting, drawing, murals and sculpture.

Artist sitting in her studio stitching embroidered imagery onto fabric, with metal relief portraits hanging behind her. — **Liz Hernandez**, studio portrait while working on an embroidered textile piece. Image courtesy of the artist.

Her visual language blends personal memory with symbolic imagery drawn from Mexican traditions, often using nested faces and repeated motifs to examine identity, care and the shifting boundaries of the self.

Artist painting black and red text and symbols on a large wall mural, wearing an apron and checkered shirt. — **Liz Hernandez**, portrait while working on mural panels. Photo by Katherine Du Tiel. Image courtesy of the artist.

Why This Work Matters

Can a painted mask tell the truth? In Hernández’s world, truth is never singular. It is layered, shifting, and revealed through time.

Her figures hold multiple selves at once, each surfacing with its own tempo and weight.

Hermana/Hermano/Hermanx — Et al. / Et al. etc.

Et al. is a gallery directed by Jackie Im and Aaron Harbour. The gallery serves as a site for exhibitions and events, working with its select roster as well as other local and international artists, performers, writers, publishers, and curators. Et al. was founded in 2013 by Im, Harbour, and Facundo Argañaraz, in the basement of Union Cleaners in San Francisco’s Chinatown as a continuation of Im and Harbour’s curatorial project. In 2017, Et al. opened its second location, Et al. etc., a storefront gallery in the Mission, and worked closely with Kevin Krueger who continues to assist now and then. In 2024, the Chinatown location closed after 11 years in operation. Et al. books is a new and used bookstore that operates out of Et al.’s Mission location. Open in 2021, it continues to expand its scope, with high-quality books in many genres. Et al./Et al. books hosts all manner of <a href=“https://etaletc.com/events”>readings and events</a> in the space.

Et al. / Et al. etc.

The mask becomes the meeting point of these selves, not a barrier but a threshold, showing how identity is built, unbuilt, and rebuilt again.

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Can a Painted Mask Tell the Truth? Artist Spotlight Liz Hernández