Jose Miguel Hernandez is the second of six Nogojiwanong-Peterborough artists who are each participating in a five-week residency in Trent Radio’s innovative “Your Radio is Their Stage” project, where artists receive mentorship, equipment, training, and support to reimagine their art as a work for broadcast radio. (Photo courtesy of Jose Miguel Hernandez)
For Jose Miguel Hernandez, becoming an artist wasn’t a choice but a calling. While growing up in Venezuela, Hernandez practised art as a hobby and took art classes. But it wasn’t until one day during his last year of university that Hernandez felt a calling to collect his old art supplies and paint something.
As he worked on his painting that day, he experienced for the first time a passion that would eventually lead him to where he is today: a full-time artist living in Nogojiwanong-Peterborough who will translate the story of his journey as an immigrant and an artist into sound during his artistic residency with Trent Radio’s “Your Radio is Their Stage” project.
Hernandez moved from Venezuela to Canada in 2014 to escape a difficult political and economic climate. According to Hernandez, he could not be gay freely in Venezuela and was looking to escape when family members in Canada offered him a place to stay until he got settled.
Jose Miguel Hernandez creates oil paintings, charcoal and pencil drawings, and mural design and paintings. He describes his oil painting style as “isolated realism”, focusing on simple images and feelings while leaving out extraneous details around the subject matter. (Photo courtesy Jose Miguel Hernandez)
“I worked in industrial design for three years after I graduated and then I came to Canada, and it was life changing,” explains Hernandez. “The freedom here to be whoever you want to be — that’s the biggest blessing.”
After he first arrived in Canada, Hernandez was unable to work while awaiting his work visa. During this period of significant transition, he turned to art to fill his time and to express his emotions.
“I was able to find myself,” Hernandez recalls. “My immigration process was super hard, so I dealt with my emotions through art, and that’s how I became who I am today as an artist.”
After receiving his work visa, Hernandez continued to practice his art while working at other jobs. But when the pandemic hit in March 2020, he lost all of his sources of income.
“I spent seven months without a job and not knowing what to do,” Hernandez says. “It felt like, ‘What am I doing with my life?’”
These circumstances finally pushed Hernandez to become a full-time working artist in September 2020. He is now a member of the board of directors for the Art School of Peterborough, where he also teaches.
Growing up in Venezuela, Jose Miguel Hernandez took seven years of art classes and worked in industrial design before immigrating to Canada in 2014. Now, in addition to his own artistic practice, Hernandez teaches art classes with the Art School of Peterborough. (Photo: Jose Miguel Hernandez)
As a visual artist, Hernandez is not married to one genre, creating oil paintings, charcoal and pencil drawings, and mural design and paintings.
Hernandez’s oil paintings are all informed by emotions and the events that changed his life and brought him to where he is today. He describes his style as “isolated realism”, focusing on simple images and feelings while leaving out extraneous details around the subject matter.
“You cannot label me as a landscape painter or a still-life painter,” Hernandez explains. “I paint things that strike an emotion and bring me to a moment, or something that left a fingerprint on me. So I have to deal with it and express what I went through. My paintings are really emotional and super personal.”
Hernandez also designs and paints murals and public installations for organizations in Peterborough and the surrounding area.
“Whether I do a painting, drawing, or a mural, my art is an extension of who I am, my sensitivity, and the way I see the world,” says Hernandez.
During his five-week residency with Trent Radio’s “Your Radio Is Their Stage” project, Hernandez is receiving mentorship, equipment, and training to support him in translating his virtual artistry into the medium of sound.
During his five-week residency with Trent Radio’s “Your Radio Is Their Stage” project, Jose Miguel Hernandez is receiving mentorship, equipment, and training to support him in translating his virtual artistry into the medium of sound. (Photo: Jose Miguel Hernandez)
This is his first time experimenting with audio, and Hernandez says he expects to continue using it after the residency is completed.
According to Hernandez, his idea for Trent Radio’s “Your Radio is Their Stage” project has evolved throughout the residency. Initially, he wanted to translate his paintings into sounds, expressing all of the emotions and messages in his work in an auditory way.
However, that original idea has now morphed into something else: he plans to use sound to tell the story of how he came to Canada and the struggles he has overcome.
Some of Jose Miguel Hernandez’s work, including these mini-paintings, was displayed in a joint exhibit with Victoria Wallace and Marcia Watt during the First Friday Peterborough art crawl on November 5, 2021. (kawarthaNOW screenshot from Jose Miguel Hernandez Instagram video)
“It’s merging into something a little bit more personal than just my work,” Hernandez says. “It’s going to be kind of interesting, somehow reflecting where I grew up and how I grew up, and what it meant to move to Canada, and why my paintings are how they are.”
To learn more about Hernandez’s artist practices, visit his website at www.autorinoart.com, or follow him on Instagram @autorino88jm.
Hernandez’s completed work will be broadcast at the end of his residency, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, November 14th on Trent Radio at 92.7 CFFF FM in Peterborough, 287 on Cogeco Cable, and online at www.trentradio.ca.
Trent Radio’s “Your Radio Is Their Stage” artist residency project runs until March 2022, with Hernandez’s residency concluding on November 14.
Textile artist Melanie McCall was the first to complete her residency on October 17, with the remaining four artist residencies JoEllen Brydon (folkloric art and installation), Justin Million (poetry), Gillian Turnham (Islamic art), and John Marris (community arts). The re-imagined work of all six participating artists will also be broadcast next April.
“Your Radio Is Their Stage” is made possible by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the only organization mandated to support campus and community radio stations in Canada financially.
This story was created in partnership with Trent Radio, a producer-oriented broadcast facility that started as a Trent University student club in 1968. Sponsored and designed by students from Trent University, Trent Radio incorporated as a registered charity in 1978. Trent Radio currently holds a Community Broadcast License, and is a resource that is shared with the Nogojiwanong-Peterborough community.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
In a case that has sent shockwaves through the Vancouver Island art community, a local art dealer has been charged with one count of fraud over $5,000. Calvin Lucyshyn, the former operator of the now-closed Winchester Galleries in Oak Bay, faces the charge after police seized hundreds of artworks, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, from various storage sites in the Greater Victoria area.
Alleged Fraud Scheme
Police allege that Lucyshyn had been taking valuable art from members of the public under the guise of appraising or consigning the pieces for sale, only to cut off all communication with the owners. This investigation began in April 2022, when police received a complaint from an individual who had provided four paintings to Lucyshyn, including three works by renowned British Columbia artist Emily Carr, and had not received any updates on their sale.
Further investigation by the Saanich Police Department revealed that this was not an isolated incident. Detectives found other alleged victims who had similar experiences with Winchester Galleries, leading police to execute search warrants at three separate storage locations across Greater Victoria.
Massive Seizure of Artworks
In what has become one of the largest art fraud investigations in recent Canadian history, authorities seized approximately 1,100 pieces of art, including more than 600 pieces from a storage site in Saanich, over 300 in Langford, and more than 100 in Oak Bay. Some of the more valuable pieces, according to police, were estimated to be worth $85,000 each.
Lucyshyn was arrested on April 21, 2022, but was later released from custody. In May 2024, a fraud charge was formally laid against him.
Artwork Returned, but Some Remain Unclaimed
In a statement released on Monday, the Saanich Police Department confirmed that 1,050 of the seized artworks have been returned to their rightful owners. However, several pieces remain unclaimed, and police continue their efforts to track down the owners of these works.
Court Proceedings Ongoing
The criminal charge against Lucyshyn has not yet been tested in court, and he has publicly stated his intention to defend himself against any pending allegations. His next court appearance is scheduled for September 10, 2024.
Impact on the Local Art Community
The news of Lucyshyn’s alleged fraud has deeply affected Vancouver Island’s art community, particularly collectors, galleries, and artists who may have been impacted by the gallery’s operations. With high-value pieces from artists like Emily Carr involved, the case underscores the vulnerabilities that can exist in art transactions.
For many art collectors, the investigation has raised concerns about the potential for fraud in the art world, particularly when it comes to dealing with private galleries and dealers. The seizure of such a vast collection of artworks has also led to questions about the management and oversight of valuable art pieces, as well as the importance of transparency and trust in the industry.
As the case continues to unfold in court, it will likely serve as a cautionary tale for collectors and galleries alike, highlighting the need for due diligence in the sale and appraisal of high-value artworks.
While much of the seized artwork has been returned, the full scale of the alleged fraud is still being unraveled. Lucyshyn’s upcoming court appearances will be closely watched, not only by the legal community but also by the wider art world, as it navigates the fallout from one of Canada’s most significant art fraud cases in recent memory.
Art collectors and individuals who believe they may have been affected by this case are encouraged to contact the Saanich Police Department to inquire about any unclaimed pieces. Additionally, the case serves as a reminder for anyone involved in high-value art transactions to work with reputable dealers and to keep thorough documentation of all transactions.
As with any investment, whether in art or other ventures, it is crucial to be cautious and informed. Art fraud can devastate personal collections and finances, but by taking steps to verify authenticity, provenance, and the reputation of dealers, collectors can help safeguard their valuable pieces.
