Letras Y Números: Galeria Luisa Strina

LETRAS Y NÚMEROS Project by FEDERICO HERRERO Federico Herrero exhibits a series of never seen before paintings, produced between Costa Rica and São Paulo. The title of the exhibition refers to the energy (of shapes and colors) and to the field of action of painting. Making use of the abstraction as platform and the canvas as space, the artist deconstructs a landscape where the resonance of the shapes leads us to a contemplative assimilation of his work. Some of these paintings carry scraps of paint from former works, patches left on the floor of his studio that act as diaries of his production and speak about the craft of painting. This resonance process occurs as well when some of the paintings, produced under control, try to limit the language and the choreography of the forms created by their residues, which precisely represent an open structure due to their random configuration.

About the artist: ”Over the last decade, the Costa Rican artist Federico Herrero has emerged as one of the most important figures in the field of visual art in Central America. Typically working in the medium of painting, his artistic practice is hugely influenced by the politics, cultural traditions, and natural splendor of his home country. Herrero translates the mix of colors, shapes, and forms of the streets of San José and the abundant tropical landscape that surround the city, onto gallery walls or canvases. His works are best described as a brisk and intense play between geometric and organic forms, from which he creates nonrepresentational narratives that are caught in the gap between figuration and abstraction.”  Jens Hoffmann Text to the Passengers show, 2008. Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco.