En el país de la memoria
(In the Country of Memory)
a duo exhibition with Argelia Rebollo
October 28 - December 16th, 2023
Pt.2 Gallery
Oakland, CA

There is a banished voice that persists in my dreams.
There is something that seeks to birth my unborn ways.
The ignored pieces of my silent self.
- Vicente Huidobro

We are so deeply seduced by what remains hidden, by that which cannot be grasped completely and can only be sensed or perceived through clues, and the unfathomable mystery of the unrevealed. We now enter into a territory of shadows. Liz Hernández welcomes us into a country where memory is as speculative as fiction, where it is far more interesting to suspect than to verify. A territory marked by quicksand where one person can be many, in constant interaction, conflict, and reconciliation. A place that is fertile ground for imagination and risk. Identity, in such a country, becomes blurred. At play here is the multiplicity of the individual, the exchanging of masks, and the disguise of the name.

Once banished from our firmly set personality, what presences secretly inhabit us? What reflections do we see when we face the mirror? Are they ancestors or future interlocutors? Can we invent a common language with these inhabitants, or must we silence them? Maybe we could, as Liz Hernández does, collaborate with them. Be hospitable and construct relationships of familiarity and estrangement with them, carving their bodies within us, like intimate monuments.

Who moves the hands that type these words?

El Aleph de Argelia (Argelia's Aleph), Acrylic on linen, 24" x 36", Year unknown

Confrontación (Confrontation), Rust aluminum, 23.75" x 19.75", 2023

Monumento a la mujer de las dos almas (Monument to the two-soul woman), Low relief in cantera stone, 36" x 36", 2023

El encuentro de las dos Argelias (The meeting of the two Argelias), Acrylic on linen, 24" x 30", Year unknown

Hacerme comprensible para los demás me hace sentir un vacío interior (Making myself understandable to others makes me feel empty inside), Rust on aluminum, 31" x 24.25", 2023

Mapa del país de la memoria: territorio perdido (Map of the country of memory: Lost territory), Acrylic on linen, 9" x 12", Year unknown

Monumento al lugar donde no existo (Monument to the place where I do not exist), Low relief in cantera stone, 36" x 36", 2023

Mis demonios, contenidos (My demons, contained), Rust on aluminum, 16.75" x 16.5", 2023

Es imposible regresar al país de la memoria (It is impossible to return to the country of memory), Electric typewriter, microcontrollers, custom table and tile covered plinth, 41" x 38.5" x 32", 2023

A José Emilio Pacheco, quien ha expresado todo aquello que desearía comunicar. (To José Emilio Pacheco, who has conveyed everything I would like to communicate) Acrylic on linen, 18" x 24", Year unknown

La batalla interna (The internal battle), Rust on aluminum, 20.75" x 17.75", 2023

Tú y yo (You and I), Acrylic on linen, 10" x 20", Year unknown

Ventriloquist, in Latin, means “one who speaks with the belly.” These are people who know how to make voices and sounds so discreetly that they appear to be emitted by another being, usually a puppet or marionette. When ventriloquists perform in front of an audience, they can minimize the gestures of their mouth to such a point that the audience cannot perceive them from a distance. I think of Liz Hernández as a ventriloquist who crosses temporal boundaries and possesses the gift of modifying her voice to the point of emitting a pitch different from her own, almost without moving her lips. Liz produces a kind of “invisible speech” and projects a voice that belongs to her and her great aunt, Argelia Rebollo. Or is it a sound born of the relationship between the two that cannot belong to anyone?

Once we exit the self and invent others, we can propose alternative horizons that might free us from the character imposed on us when we arrive in this world. In this exhibition, which is a luminous experiment, Liz Hernández creates the unborn ways that Vicente Huidobro speaks of, those ignored bits and pieces that inhabit us and are waiting to escape from our belly.

Written by Valeria Mata.

English translation by Marina Azahua.