HERNAN BAS

One of the most celebrated figurative painters of our generation, Bas is known for his narrative works that weave together adolescent adventures and the paranormal with classical poetry, religious stories, mythology, and literature, presenting a contemporary version of History Painting. For Bas, each individual painting becomes an in-depth investigation into a singular critical subject, often providing a unique perspective on American subcultures. In his latest series, Bas draws inspiration from his recent travels throughout Florida and his obscure interests, turning to stories that have been on the creative back-burner for years. Departing from the world of The Conceptualists, which Bas developed over nearly two years, the exhibition reveals one of the artist’s most personal bodies of work to date and his mastery of visual storytelling.

After finishing The Conceptualists in 2023, Bas became fascinated by everyday jobs, objects, and behaviours that teeter between necessity, uselessness, and absurdity. Taking his wry sense of humour to new depths, Bas embeds each new painting with satire and irony as a means of probing prevalent yet useless human behaviors. His focus on frivolity and excess mirrors the work of 19th century writers such as Oscar Wilde and Joris-Karl Huysmans, whose work has had a formative impact on Bas’s practice over the years. As the first painting that he completed in this series, A needless moment (2025) serves as a jumping off point for his exploration of “needless things.” Inspired by photographs taken in the dense, mosquito-laden swamps of Northern Florida, Bas explores how an object, such as a mosquito-net hat, becomes futile in the face of the owner’s choices, namely his decision to wander the swamp shirtless. The Florida landscape continues to be a source of inspiration, as seen in the work The 6 toed cats’ caretaker (Hemingway house) (2025), where Bas sheds light on the caretakers of the Hemingway House in the Florida Keys whose sole responsibility is the care of the house’s rare cats. At first glance, the job might seem superfluous, but the cats—descendants of Hemingway’s own pets—have become a key part of the house’s attraction.

Other works in the exhibition expand on Bas’s ongoing interest in the occult, such as The pet psychic’s dilemma(2025) where he imagines a pet psychic summoned to investigate a hen that has inexplicably begun laying black eggs. Through this scenario, Bas explores the seemingly frivolous profession of pet psychics, highlighting its paradoxical importance in fulfilling the human desire to understand animals. In Holiday Spirits (2025), Bas presents a pun-filled scene in which a boy dressed in black sits in front of a Christmas tree with a half-opened Ouija board. The board, traditionally used to communicate with the dead, offers a stark contrast to the usual symbols of birth and joy associated with Christmas. Despite being a tool that has been in production for centuries, there has been no concrete proof that Oujia boards can actually contact spirits.

With Bas’s rich compositions and tongue-in-cheek narratives, The space between needful & needless invites viewers to re-examine the meaning that we prescribe to certain traditions or objects and the fine line between what is truly necessary and what is useless in life and art.