After three years of working on this project, Hernan Paganini’s latest site-specific Public Art installation debuted this month at the UW Behavioral Health Teaching Facility Hospital in North Seattle. We spent the morning with Hernan viewing his series of pieces and then spent the afternoon in his South Seattle studio, catching up about his artistic process, learning where he finds inspiration and hearing about his interesting and unique past that has led him to where he is today. Hernan is wearing pieces from Arpenteur, orSlow, Universal Works, MAN-TLE and Lady White. View the full collection of styles here.
This public art project was a long-time collaboration between the University of Washington, SRG Partnership, and the Washington State of Art Commission with the lofty goal of connecting the building, occupants and the architecture through two large site-specific collages on wood.
“When I started on this project I spent a year and a half just researching and soaking up the specific subject of mental health and the potential past approaches to that field. The heart of this research was focused from the beginning on prioritizing the human aspect of this matter. I was interested in seeing the potential ways to connect the building and the different types of occupants who will use it in an organic way, and the possibility to create art as a healing bridge between them."
"The full project was to think about the art as a second skin of the building, as a complement to the line's architecture, moving, and dancing with and through it; like a subtle whisper that works with the atmosphere of nature to transport the people inside the building to a gentle, soft, and care state of mind. Using the light and the shadows, through the movement of the sun inside the hospital, the relief in the art surface shows traces of those gestures, capturing the light and reflecting into the space, bringing the possibility to connect it throughout the senses, creating a meditative space; working with the empty spaces and the silence as a nourish experience to the soul and heart.
It all comes back to people. The art needs to be the bridge to connect people together. It's not just a passive thing hanging on a wall. You're not here to celebrate the ego of the person creating art but embrace the idea of community building around each piece. We belong to something much bigger than individuals. Every moment that I make something for myself, I see that I am also doing it for everyone else. I suppose that I am here to try to upgrade that or at least to bring a tiny humble perspective that can shift the frequency of people and places."
"There is a type of strange sense of universal language to all my work gestures.
I love to work in small pieces because it allows me to produce in a series of things. More than anything, everything starts here, on my tiny table, mirror of the endless soul. I can work with whatever materials that comes to me; they will always show me what to do and trace a path to unknown destinations.
Within my entire body of work, I have undertaken various typologies of projects. Each opportunity, for me, is an adventure; a chance to push my own limits as a sensitive and ever-evolving human being in constant transformation."
"The path of the multidisciplinary and curious artist is a voyage into uncharted paths, a daring embrace of creative diversity that beckons the soul with endless possibilities. It's a journey where boundaries blur, where artistry transcends the confines of a single medium, and where the artist evolves not only professionally but as a richer, more empathetic human being.
Like I said before, everything starts and end in ourselves, we create the life that we want to live, so the only thing that I desire is to preserve my mental, spiritual and body health to continue bringing the best version of myself to this existence."
"I just explore and play.
The universe, while destroying, also constructs; new things emerge from nothing.
I don't have this big expectation to have a super fine-art quality to my work or in which way the art system moves these days; all the layers of the society are melting in front of our eyes, so it’s nice to be flexible and open to evolved every day. It's nice to be able to work on big projects because is a big training to keep you fit, working with the compromise of existing, expand your pulse to more people and allows you to walk outside comfort zones. It’s nice when something or someone challenges you, and other days you want to come here in intimacy to draw, just for the inner deep necessity of align in harmony with the universe; like an instrument being tuned.
In the sculptures, installations, and collages that I produce the fragments are juxtaposed, staggered, scraped, enraged, approached, denied, affirmed, constructed and reconstructed in new possible interpretations. A new lexicon of misunderstandings; actions that attempt to incite new questions, unlearn what was learned and think again about how we relate to others, to the system and to manifestations of life."
"For me, it’s not about being an important recognized artist, that things of belonging to some place or empties ideas never excited me at all; it’s more close to having time to explore my internal landscape and open the opportunity to express myself in freedom and share with others the way that life pass through me.
I am in this present moment right now with the same hunger as when I was a child, the same craving of exploration. I feel there is so much more to know.
It’s really vital to have these pleasure and recreation moments because I can be doing things and working all the time. Everything in the studio, these are the fruits of that life; it’s pure energy. I get passionate about everything."
"I feel that right now my job is being present as a lighthouse and continue exchange with people, to move forward, to connect with the pulse of life and to feel nourish and inspired by this endless fountain.
I want to bring a positivity light perspective to people, even with our limitations, past histories, familiar karmas and deep fears. To understand, everything that they need is already inside ourselves. I love that. You can do it. All of us, we can do this.
The rules of the game that we live in are completely opposite. All your life you are fighting to fit within this system. We doubt a lot and this is the biggest poison that you can have in your heart, doubt about yourself, your skills, doubt about your capacity. We need to work on confidence, to love ourselves without any judgment. It’s a hard balance to find but it’s important to remember, trying to be the most honest version of yourself every day."
"A flower in the middle of the desert bring their perfume, even if there is someone to smell it or not, you know? This is vital, the base of everything that I do, just to release pollen and to keep creating.”
The longer and deeper I work, the more I understand that the body of my actions come from the construction of all. They are materialized by the memory of time, our thoughts and dreams shared in a place which sometimes has no tangible form. During the process we can find our soul; a fervent flow of energy that runs without stopping. Finished immobile pieces only show a trace of what has already past behind.
In this new paradigm, art creates bridges between the huge tangent which has divided us for so long- like an invisible cord that silently ties it all.