CURRENT EXHIBITION
Nico Hernandez
Your Recurring Dream
May 24 - June 21, 2026
Reception Sunday, May 24, 3-5pm
Alto Beta is pleased to present Your Recurring Dream, a debut solo exhibition of paintings by Nico Hernandez.
This body of work is about the physical experience of viewing. The paintings are explorations into retinal persistence, the optical phenomenon where the eye continues to briefly see an image after it has disappeared from view, and color fatigue, where the eye’s color receptors are overstimulated and cause the surface to vibrate. The bright colors and repetition of lines and patterns are meant to allow the viewer to have an active experience in receiving the work rather than passive consumption.
The focus on color, serial geometric forms and sculptural elements are inspired by the Op Art Movement, significant in providing a framework from which the artist can contribute their perspective and meditations on presence that guide each painting from conception to execution. With variable dimension and orientation, the works can be grouped together to form new modular configurations that can be viewed individually or as long chains of intersecting colors. Each new construction is an opportunity for both artist and viewer to strip away distractions and focus on each painted line rather than an endless stream of memories, dreams, and noise that occupies the mind.
Nico Hernandez (b. 1992, Simi Valley, CA) worked as a printmaker at Cirrus Editions Ltd. before co-founding Aliso Editions in 2019, publishing fine art prints and multiples with artists in Los Angeles and New York through 2023. He lives and works in Los Angeles, CA
COMING UP...
Adam Ross
Living in a Science Fictional World
June 28 - July 26, 2026
​Reception Sunday, June 28, 3-5pm
The current body of work titled “Living in a Science Fictional World” was begun during the Covid lockdown when I came to the conclusion that I no longer wanted to work in large scale oil painting. I shifted to water-based mediums and I began working on a smaller scale. The work did begin as cityscapes but painted in a much more classical manner. Though within a year it evolved into landscape with some urban remnants. Unfortunately, the majority of these earlier cityscape paintings were lost in the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California in early 2025.
The work in this exhibition at Alto Beta, “Living in a Science Fictional World” comes from multiple sources and ideas. A conversation with the past is definitely present. There is also definitely a conversation with the future in that once again the presence of humans may or may not be within the world of these paintings. Ultimately, the dichotomy mentioned in previous paragraph is still present. Most likely, it will persist to the end, if I had to hazard a guess.
The system set up was derived from an extensive studying of three historic landscape painters: Jacob van Ruisdael, Caspar Daivd Friedrich and John Constable. Constable is particularly important due to the fact that he painted at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, which began in his country of origin, England. It is well documented that he was deeply dismayed with the coal fired pollution of Victorian London and the ill effect that it had on the health of his wife who died young from what was most likely tuberculosis. He moved her multiple times to escape the bad air but to no avail. His insistence, to his own financial detriment, to paint the past as he found it in rural Suffolk, his home county, is quite obvious. He was profoundly saddened by what was being lost.
I would posit that my current work may exist somewhere at the end of this process that was begun in the early nineteenth century. I’m still trying to sort it out.
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Adam Ross