Introspective, therapeutic and evocative, we explore the abstract work of the hand of its creator. &nbsp;

Feeling the polished wood of a brush handle while the bristles glide across the canvas and the paint gives off that inimitable smell; percieve the friction of the pigment with the paper and obvserve how the pastel chalk remains on the fingers like a colorful imprint of creation or appreciate the direction followed by the stroke of a pencil to form, movememnt by movement, a perfect gradient. It is undeniable: any work of art, figurative or abstract, with all its possibilities for reflection, regardless of its narrative, is and always will be a therapeutic act.
And it is that, it is a journey of introspection for both: creator and spectator. As id a canvas became the best widnow into our being to reveal what is hidden, behind shapes and nuances, we discover aspirations, pains, fears, ideals... "I don't necessarily consider it as a revolution of the subconcious, but as a revelation of the truth and what is often hidden from us by our emotions and the stories that our minds create," explains Alanna Hernandez, the artist who explores and bears witness to emotions as the beginning and end of her work, which emerges from a path linked to a study of art, history and language.

Colored pencils that mark on wood the abstract lines of the path towards the depth of traumas and human bonds; like a labyrinth made with strips of evocative nuances but in their lighter tones, simple and complex at the same time,&nbsp;each work in an x-ray of the body where the ties, whose texture delicately matches the fabric of a fabric, are the object of manipulation and eternal transformation: "I like how they can evoke body shapes, like guts and brains, and I love how they can create rhythm and movement," explains the American creative about the ribbons that characterize her pieces.
A pleasant melody painted in red that awakens calm and reflection in a soft gradient, each element composes the alphabet of an inherent dialect. "All of my compositions honour our innate sense of proportion and visual balance," he notes.
The passion for illustration has become a way of procesing feelings and, like any healing ritual, it also has an essential tool to reach that moment of introspection. "I keep a journal that also doubles as my sketchbook. Almost every day I write about how I feel, something I did, something that happened to me, something I saw, something I learned, something I thought about, or even a to-do list. Between the pages of writing these are sketches where I worked through my ideas visually," explains the creator, who makes evident the power of carefully observing to percieve, discover and reflect.

But that empirical understanding does not only happen from the personal and individual lens but also when contemplating the multiplicy of emotional responses in others from her profession as a pedagogue:&nbsp;"much of what I know about trauma comes from my daily work as an educator and from working with children with diverse histories of trauma. I took several trainings with Dr. Cassie Yackley, who trains teachers in infromed practi e (on that condition)".
Between psychology, art, humanism, and everything that happens between them, the work of Alanna Hernandez has never been single-handed, precisely because human interactions and their effect as a central concept result in dimensions, where their appereance through time also plays a relevant role. "History is always a source of inspiration for me. The story is about human relationships and the traumas we inflict on each other. It's a way of looking at some of my subjects outside of myself, as much of my process is introspective. Studying history and languages has also given me an education in non-Western art; especially the non-figurative art of Asia and the Middle East, which influences my abstract work, emphasizes the creative, whose work not only reflects oriental references in visual terms.

Tantric philosophy and its branches in yoga and Buddhism are an essential element to meditatively approach the preception of the body and how it adapts or hides wounds and emotions&nbsp;(as happens with the strips that are interrupted by other objects in its pieces). This is how, with the virtue of the tapes to bend and extend again, a great weight for the power of visual language and a list of inspiration where the names Pema Chodrom&nbsp;and Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk stand out with The Body Keeps the Score, Hernandez's creative vision culminates in an ideology that harmonizes and unifies sensations, the body and everything that surrounds it form the attention in each daily act; as a mentioned in tantra, which, "among other things, advocates witnessing emotions and letting them flow through us, instead of denying them or trying to fix them," explains the illustrator.
And while this happens, it is his captivating labyrinths of colorful ribbons on soft backgrounds that become a portal, which motivates to overcome the barriers to do that poetic and practical introspection with freedom and total honesty, declaring, without parallel narratives on the surface, that art is also an act of love and self-knowledge.

Trauma and human relationships under the artistic magnifying glass of Alanna Hernandez

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