Javier Hermida Ruiz (Alcalá de Guadaíra, Seville, 1962) is a painter, draftsman, designer, graphic content creator, illustrator, and, above all, a professor of Plastic and Visual Arts. His academic training, including a degree in Fine Arts, is a part of his journey as a creator, though not the defining one. His talent and artistic skill owe more to his continuous learning from various sources since a young age and his immense intellectual and artistic curiosity.

His work encompasses a wide range of techniques and formats, including drawing, design, audiovisual creation, illustration, art direction for events, and primarily painting. Notably, his expertise in watercolor, both landscape and portrait, stands out. His watercolors showcase the artistic and technical conflict between the simplicity of beauty and the complexity of creation. Hermida draws influence from some of the best painters of the prominent Alcalá landscape school. His versatility in formats and themes, along with his constant pursuit of learning and improvement, has made him one of the most distinguished artistic creators of his time and environment.

Hermida's artistic creation is the result of a rigorous process of observation, interpretation, and sublimation of images, transforming them into beauty and achieving artistic and aesthetic transcendence. In this process, his dedication to drawing is significant—not merely as a tool but as the essential foundation of his painting and designs. His creation process is driven by his curiosity and intellectual rigor, extending beyond the plastic arts to include his appreciation and knowledge of music, cinema, history, literature, and even science. He is an exacting and honest creator, respectful of the viewer's perspective but not bound by market demands or artistic criticism.

As a designer and illustrator, Hermida has worked on projects for pavilions, exhibitions, and internationally significant museums. This professional engagement has added technical demands and required adapting his artistic creation to various formats and purposes, from archaeological exhibitions (notably his impressive work at the National Archaeological Museum of Istanbul) to museums with diverse themes. His work transcends mere image replication, embodying ideas and abstract concepts. His drawings also appear in a variety of books, from textbooks to literary works. Hermida views illustration as an enriching complement to texts, aiming to accompany rather than replace, explain, or distort what is conveyed in words, always considering the discerning eye of the image viewer and, most importantly, the reader.

Juan Antonio Muñoz Andrade