HENRY BERMUDEZ Art in Continuous Evolution
BERMUDEZ
(Cover detail) Something Magical in the Landscape/ Algo Magico En El Paisaje, 2007 | mixed media on canvas | 64 x 46 inches
HENRY BERMUDEZ
Art in Continuous Evolution
Venezuelan-born artist Henry Bermudez is renowned for his ever-evolving artistic practice that draws from myth, religion, and legend to create a vibrant, layered body of work exploring identity, exile, and transformation. Bermudez’s aesthetic is rooted in the crystallization of ideas shaped by fear, adulation, and obsession—his twisting forms and densely layered compositions suggest a mind in perpetual motion, interpreting and reinterpreting the symbolic structures of culture.
Early in his career, Bermudez gained international recognition, representing Venezuela at the XVII Venice Biennale in 1986. His formative years were shaped by deep immersion in the mythologies and rituals of the Amazon and the Afro-Caribbean village of Borbures, where he spent two years teaching and absorbing the region’s rich visual and musical culture. As he recalls, “religious and social syncretism provided a unique vision of the African Diaspora in the Americas with its symbolism and iconography.” Later, his time in Mexico brought encounters with hybrid creature-plant forms and colonial mythologies that helped him refine his distinctive visual language.
In 2003, while traveling in the United States, Bermudez learned that the Venezuelan regime had deemed his work politically subversive. Effectively exiled, he sought refuge in Philadelphia, where he began rebuilding his life and artistic practice from the ground up. This rupture—between homeland and host country, tradition and reinvention— infuses his work with an acute awareness of displacement and adaptation.
While he began as a painter, Bermudez has since embraced a dynamic range of media, including cut paper, glitter, cardboard, fabric, and assemblage. His compositions are lush with vibrant color, shimmering textures, and mythic forms that intertwine across surfaces, merging the sacred with the surreal. Through these works, Bermudez offers a vision that transcends Western art historical traditions, embracing a hybrid cosmology rooted in pre-Hispanic, Judeo-Christian, and Afro-Caribbean influences.
En El Jardin De Michelle, 2020 | acrylic and oil on canvas | 30 x 24 inches
Henry Bermudez: Art in Continuous Evolution marks a significant development in his practice, showcasing monumental sculptural works and a new suite of handpainted prints. These highly graphic, dimensional pieces expand his mythologically inspired aesthetic into immersive, large-scale formats, offering audiences a fresh perspective on the power and adaptability of his artistic language.
Bermudez’s work has been exhibited throughout Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the United States, and resides in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Neuberger Museum, the Modern Art Museum of Mexico, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and the Venezuela National Gallery, among others. A recipient of a PollockKrasner Foundation Grant in 2012, he continues to live, teach, and create in Philadelphia. His work remains an autobiographical meditation on cultural fusion, exile, and continuous evolution—both personal and artistic.
The Dancer, 2021 | ink on paper | 14 x 11 inches
Riding, 2021 | ink on paper | 9 x 12 inches
Green Sunflowers, 2021 | mixed media on canvas | 83 x 64 inches
Two Blue Leopards, 2024 | oil on canvas | 20 x 16 inches
Red Leopard, 2024 | oil on canvas | 20 x 16 inches
Birds, 2025 acrylic on plywood | 73 x 24 x 37 inches
Little Branch, 2021 | ink on paper | 12 x 9 inches
Landscape’s Portrait/ Retrato De Un Paisaje, 2020 | oil on canvas | 52 x 48 inches
Keicha, 2020 | oil on canvas | 36 x 32 inches
Caught, 2021 | ink on paper| 9 x 12 inches
The Trip of Sankofa and Quetzalcoatl,, 2021 | acrylic on wood | 48 x 48 inches Dream,, 2021 | acrylic on wood | 48 x 48 inches
En Compañía, 2020 | mixed media on canvas | 46 x 42 inches
Sueño De Una Noche De Octubre, 2022 | acrylic and cut paper on canvas | 64 x 46 inches
Leopards in the Grass, 2025 acrylic on plywood | 74 x 43 x 24 inches
Something Magical in the Landscape/Algo Magico En El Paisaje, 2007 | acrylic and cut paper on canvas | 64 x 46 inches
(left) Leopard, 2025 | acrylic on plywood | 61.5 x 28.5 x 14 inches
(right) Dawn, 2020 | acrylic and oil on canvas | 66 x 48 inches
(left) Flor Del Decierto, 2009 | ink on paper| 12 x 9 inches
(right) Nocturno I, 2020 | mixed media on canvas | 36 x 32 inches
(right) Nocturne, 2020 | mixed media on canvas | 40 x 32 inches
Birds in the Grass, 2025 acrylic on plywood | 98 x 41 x 26 inches
(left) Nube, 2019 | ink on paper| 12 x 9 inches
(right) The Bird, 2025 | acrylic on wood | 21.5 x 20 x 11 inches
Abstract, 2024 |charcoal on canvas| 88 x 88 inches
(left) The Horse Tree, 2021 ink on paper | 12 x 9 inches
(left) Bird, 2019 ink on paper | 12 x 9 inches
(right) Mi Amigo El Tigre, 2004 mixed media on canvas | 16 x 20 inches
(left) Horse, 2025 acrylic on plywood | 61.5 x 28.5 x 14 inches
(right) Fragmento De Un Sueno De Octubre, 2006 mixed media on canvas | 26 x 32 inches
The Bride, 2021 | mixed media on canvas | 74 x 83 inches
Created for Henry Bermudez: Art in Continuous Evolution, this suite of five hand-painted prints showcases the artist’s signature blend of myth, nature, and ornament. Each work is uniquely embellished with mixed media, making the set a singular expression of Bermudez’s evolving visual language.
Three prints feature a vivid rose motif set against playful, patterned grounds—one blooming atop a shimmering bed of silver glitter. The remaining works draw from Bermudez’s enduring interest in animals: two highlight his iconic horse heads, while the third centers on a solitary bird.
Blurring the line between painting and print, this edition of one embodies Bermudez’s commitment to transformation, symbolism, and richly layered form.
Promised Land: Suite of Five Unique Prints, 2024
Hand-painted with mixed media on archival paper
30 x 22 inches each | Edition of 1
