Nadia Hernández’s multi-disciplinary practice reflects a process of bearing witness to the loss of home and the symbolic power of memory and memorialisation. Informed by her experience as a Venezuelan woman living in Australia, and positioning herself both within and outside the Venezuelan diaspora, Hernández makes art as a means to connect with a sense of place that exists beyond psychic and geographic boundaries. She negotiates complex narratives, weaving the personal and the political, to create a highly recognisable visual language expressed through colourful textiles, paper constructions, paintings, music, installations, sculptures, and murals. Her works weave together the complexities of memory, despair, hope and reconciliation, reminding us that these opposing sensations often co-exist.

Hernández was the winner of the 2021 Grace Cossington Smith Art Award, and the winner of the 2019 Churchie National Emerging Art Prize, one of Australia’s leading prizes for emerging artists. She was a finalist in the inaugural Ellen José Art Award (2022), Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize (2021), Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award (2021, 2019), Create NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship (2020), John Fries Award (2019), and Fisher Ghost Art Award (2021, 2017). Hernández was commissioned to develop an immersive educational program and exhibition as Shepparton Art Museum’s EduLAB artist (2020), and was a recipient of the Bundanon Trust Artist in Residence (2019). Recent public art commissions include an artwork projection on William Jolly Bridge for Fiesta Latina, commissioned by Brisbane City Council (2019); a large-scale mural for Brisbane Canvas commissioned by Brisbane City Council (2019); and Wonder, commissioned by the City of Sydney for their official New Year’s Eve celebrations (2017).