Hernan Bas

Hernan Bas (born 1978) is an artist based in Miami, Florida. He graduated in 1996 from the New World School of the Arts in Miami.

Bas is known for his depictions of waifs and dandies, who are somewhat based on his own experiences, and his work with the material SlimFast and the paranormal. Over time, Bas says, these characters have grown in his paintings and taken on different roles.

Bas owns a building in Detroit that was renovated by Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller, the couple behind Detroit electronic music act Adult. The building is on a block called Service Street noted for the number of diverse and accomplished artists that work there, including techno music pioneer Derrick May.

Early life and education Bas was born in 1978, in Miami, Florida and moved upstate to a small town as a young boy. Bas has described growing up in the town as "kind of like living in the 'X-Files," and has credited it with his interest in the paranormal. He has built himself a dark room in the basement of his studio to continue experimenting with photography. Bas has a total of eight works at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, The Start of the Rain (2004), All By Myself (2004), Idyll in Elysium (2003), The Love of the Exiotic (2003), The One That Got Away (2003), Untitled (2003), The Whores of Venice (Version 1) (2003), and The Whores of Venice (Version 2). In Washington, D.C. he has artwork at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. The Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami has three pieces by Bas in the permanent collection. The collection includes Fleeting Moments (2005), Slim Fast Silhouette (1999-2000), and Ghosts of You (2001). Influences Bas has described some of his influences as the lives of saints and the paranormal. According to Bas, these stories can be both fictional or true, and he also looks into artists he may have not noticed before for inspiration. In his earliest paintings, Bas' characters lived in what the artist described as "fag-limbo," which Bas described as the point between "realizing you're different and telling everyone else that you're different." Bas' artwork mostly consists of "waifs" who play a variety of roles from the Hardy boys to saints. Bas says this connection can be seen in his painting, the primordial soup theory (2010). He says he connects homosexuality with the paranormal because he connects the "insane stuff" people perceive about homosexuality to be similar to how people view the paranormal.