In his first solo exhibition in the Netherlands, Cuban artist Diango Hernández presented a staggering number of drawings.

“Mama could you give me birth again, I make a mistake.“ This line is written in ink on one of Hernández’ drawings presented in Amateur. Another drawing depicts a man vomiting as he sits at a computer. The monitor reads: “Our race is sick“. Some of the drawings feature Hernández himself: smoking in front of an open window with a shark fin on his back, and again with his hands and feet in buckets of water. Hernández’ work is an outpouring of absurd observations, musings and ideas for new projects.

Hernández’ simple, yet lucid style captures the world around him: a world that amuses him as much as it disturbs him. His genuine love of the imperfect and the abject is revealed both in his choice of subjects and materials and in his imagery. Thus, Hernández’ position on the state of his native country is revealed. Here, as in the west, the promise of a better future has yet to be fulfilled. Hernández approaches the world astutely and almost obsessively, attempting to unravel and subvert it through humour.