Marbella Hernandez: Dallas Painter Blends Houston Pop Memory, Craft, and Social Critique

Key facts

• Marbella Hernandez is a mixed media painter based in Dallas, Texas.
• She grew up in Houston during the 2000s and 2010s.
• In 2022 she relocated from Houston to the Dallas area to study painting at The University of Texas at Arlington.
• Her primary medium is acrylic, combined with craft materials and processes.
• She describes her style as audacious, with bold color, camp, and punk inflection.
• Her most meaningful work to date is Good Dog or Bad Dog?, a 68 by 50 inch mixed media painting on unstretched cotton canvas using acrylic, gesso, screws, spray paint, and thread.
• The painting features three Dobermans and addresses racial stereotyping, socioeconomic injustice, and gendered structures in fine art.
• She cites singer Slayyyter as a major influence and draws on pop punk, rock, and emo from her teenage years.
• She is currently brainstorming a new series centered on femininity, to be painted on Masonite panels shaped with a jigsaw.