"Trepidation over global upheaval and loss in 2020 created an uncertain backdrop for an artist’s first solo museum exhibition. A mixture of skepticism, excitement, and melancholy is allowed to exist in Gonzalo Hernandez’s exhibition, titled ):), at SCAD Museum of Art. The one-room show—staged in a space dedicated to SCAD alumni that has floor-to-ceiling windows dividing the gallery from the museum foyer—includes a noticeable diversity of mediums, including painting, photography, video, and vinyl installation. The eponymous work, ):) (gracias Todd) (2020), features the reversible emoticon—often used to denote mixed feelings or being simultaneously happy and sad—painted three times in primary colors on a sheet of Tyvek construction material. The three renderings overlap so that the emoticon is legible yet falls slightly out of register, so that the image visually vibrates, evoking the uncertainty and multiplicity of the emoticon’s meaning. This multilayered imagery is directly applied to a sheet of construction material stapled to the mounting board, cementing the theme of ongoing development found throughout the exhibition." - Leia Genis