artnexus #73

Federico Herrero (Costa Rica, 1978) goes beyond the limits of traditional notions of the painting. Not only for the way he handles the physical limits of the canvas but for how his work operates in space. As he puts it, his work is a kind of unique oeuvre where what gets modified are the conditions that prefigure space and site. Asked what is his relationship with space, his answer leaves no doubt about his work methodology: from the start, what he has done is to approach a site without a preconceived project, with a clear idea of the space without having visited it before, and only starts to work after his encounter with the site, his decisions are made there, there is no pre-planning, and improvisation plays a key role. His landscapes are conceived on alternative supports so that the most diverse surfaces are intervened. Besides the traditional canvas, his supports can include a bus, a wall, a street, a public toilet, or the bottom of a swimming pool. Thinking of landscapes as mental processes that emerge from his own experiences helps understand Herrero’s interest in fragments, as well as his chromatic and compositional subjectivity. His particular way of approaching a traditional technique such as painting generates in the viewer a variety of readings, appealing to the imagination layers upon layers of color, cross-hatchings of planes, and a variety of textures. Herrero’s works have been exhibited in Asia, the Americas, and Europe, and his projects have competed in prestigious international events. At the 49th Venice Biennale (2001), Herrero won the Golden Lion as the best artist under 35. 
IVONNE PINI