Ester Hernandez

Ester Hernández (born 1944) is a San Francisco-based Chicana visual artist best known for her pastels, paintings, and prints of Chicana/Latina women. Her work contains political, social, ecological, and spiritual themes that reflect her interest in community and political action. Her work celebrates the ability of women to adapt and recreate themselves in new circumstances and environments.

"As a Chicana artist, I believe it is important to produce and disseminate positive images of our varied lives: my work counteracts the stereotypes of Latina women as either passive victims or demonized creatures. My subjects range from grandmothers to folk singers to truck drivers, and in a very real sense, my artwork becomes a form of iconography. In honoring the experiences of these bold women, I gain a renewed understanding of myself." -Ester Hernandez

Hernández is a Chicana of Yaqui and Mexican heritage, and was born and raised by farm worker parents in central San Joaquin Valley in California, an area associated with the struggle of farm workers. She was incredibly influenced by her family's involvement in the farmworkers' movement.

Hernández was also influenced by the politically charged atmosphere at University of California, Berkeley, where she received her BA in 1976. In 1974, she joined Las Mujeres Muralistas, an influential group of female mural artists based in the San Francisco Mission District. Ideas from her work also engaged with the Chicana/Chicano civil rights movement. By 1977, she had completed eleven murals in the San Francisco area. After receiving her B.A., she worked as an art instructor at several schools and universities in the Bay Area.

Hernández works with a variety of media, using painting for more personal work and screen-printing for more political work. Art critic Amalia Mesa Baines has noted:

In the 1980s, Hernandez began to develop a counterpoint to her screen printing tradition, using the medium of the pastel to create a more narrative and naturalistic rendering of characters influential within her own life. The pastel work almost serves as a pleasurable respite from the demands of a cultural critique in its joyful celebration of community.

Continues Mesa Baines, "As with her artwork of her close friend and artistic madrina (godmother) Tejana singer Lydia Mendoza, she subverts, re-contextualizes, and transforms culturally traditional images into a series of feminist icons, elevating their status to that of role models."

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