Collapse (2018) by Abbie Hernandez

Watercolor on Yupo
21”h x 17”w

This series of paper studies emerged through watching my father as he moved
into dementia. His world became defined by small, recurring actions: folding
cloth, tearing paper, crumpling wrappers. These gestures, stripped of narrative,
became a language of form and focus.
The current series draws directly from these actions. Folded, torn, and crumpled
materials serve as the basis for studies that, while visually minimal, carry layers
of accumulated gesture. Repetition plays a central role—not only in the imagery
but in the making itself—evoking the rhythm of daily practice and the looping
patterns of memory.
What began as a response to a singular, personal experience has since
developed into a sustained, daily practice. Over time, the work has shifted from a
direct reflection of that moment to a broader investigation into how we carry loss
across time, space, and form. Through repeated engagement with material—
folding, drawing, marking—I explore the mechanics of memory and loss: how it
fragments, distills, repeats, and reshapes itself.
This process allows for a continued relationship with absence that is not fixed in
mourning, but embedded in routine. The gestures I render are no longer only my
father’s—they become archetypal, formal, abstract. Practiced as a daily
meditation on the universal condition of carrying loss, these drawings form a
bridge between past and present, and become a means of mindfulness, a way to
hold grief without being consumed by it.