Sonorous Somatics 008: Andres Hernandez + Damon Locks

code: KING ALFRED ends in a culminating presentation featuring exhibiting artist Andres Hernandez and composer, producer, and interdisciplinary visual artist Damon Locks. Building on their friendship and mutual regard for each other’s practice, Hernandez and Locks combine their dynamic approach to sampling Hip Hop, house, and soul music with vocal audio and textures to uplift the themes of Hernandez’ exhibition. The multi-media performance will be presented in two 30 minute presentations to create space for the audience to consider the relationship between the music and the themes, while offering an opportunity for spontaneous response to the previous set from Locks and Hernandez during their second and final presentation.

Andres L. Hernandez is a conceptual artist and educator who explores models for imagining and existing otherwise. Inspired by the cultural, knowledge, and spatial production of African-descent peoples, his practice encompasses collaborative, socially-engaged, and independent artmaking.

Hernandez’ projects include individual and collaborative commissions for Threewalls, University of Arizona, Venice Architecture Biennale, and Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Washington University in St. Louis. With Dark Adaptive, he co-developed performances for The Drawing Center, Graham Foundation, MoMA, Sharjah Biennial, and Performa. Currently, as part of the performance duo Two Halves, he co-develops site-responsive soundscapes, scores for moving image and performance, video works, and electronic music.

Hernandez’ residencies include MCA Chicago’s SPACE program at Curie High School and University of Chicago Arts + Public Life Initiative, and he has received awards from 3Arts and Efroymonson Family Fund.  Hernandez received degrees from Cornell University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art Education.

Damon Locks is a Chicago-based visual artist, educator, vocalist/musician. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago where he received his BFA in fine arts. Since 2014 he has been working with the Prisons and Neighborhood Arts Project at Stateville Correctional Center teaching art.

He is a 2025 recipient of the Creative Capital Award. In 2017 he became a Soros Justice Media Fellow. He received an Helen Coburn Meier and Tim Meier Achievement Award in the Arts in 2015. In 2019, he became a 3Arts Awardee. He spent 4 years as an artist in residence as a part of the Museum of Contemporary Arts’ SPACE Program, introducing civically engaged art into the curriculum at Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy High School.

He teaches Improvisation in the Sound Department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Damon leads the Black Monument Ensemble, is a member of New Future City Radio, Exploding Star Orchestra and co-founded the band The Eternals.

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