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Iconic Videogames Become Iconic Renaissance Paintings In "Genesis 2014"

Dan Hernandez' new painting series is a timeless homage to the SEGA Age.

Boasting not only the art history knowledge to back it, but enough technical know-how to reproduce these Renaissance-realistic paintings, Dan Hernandez' gaming updates to the works of Italian icon Fra Angelico are rapidly becoming things of legend themselves. By mixing imagery from SEGA classics like Streets of Rage and Altered Beast with Renaissance gold, Hernandez is creating something like a classic squared.

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See for yourself:

Says Hernandez of the Genesis 2014 series currently on display at Kim Foster Gallery:

Genesis is defined as “the coming into being of something; the origin”, but like many words that can be used as both noun and proper noun, what it communicates depends largely on its usage. Two of its usages, and the relationship that exists between them, are particularly interesting and relevant to my body of work. In the first, and probably most well known, Genesis is the title of an important religious text. In the second, and equally well known amongst my generation, Genesis is the Sega video game console that hit the home gaming market in the late 1980s.

While these two usages come from very different traditions, they share some common ground. On a basic level both signify a type of narrative device. In the case of the religious text, the Book of Genesis houses the creation stories that are part of the Christian tradition; Noah’s Arc, Adam & Eve, etc. Similarly, the Sega Genesis game console is a vehicle for narrative games like Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Altered Beast and others. On another level, both of the narrative collections that are associated with these usages of Genesis utilize the supernatural and mythic as a central and reoccurring theme. These comparisons are clearly a bit of a stretch, but within the space that is created by embracing such eccentric relationships there exists unique and interesting possibilities for artistic exploration.

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Genesis 2014 is on display at Kim Foster Gallery through April 26.

h/t Laughingsquid

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